SPIRITUAL
DIARY FOR 10-22-03
My
Worship Time Focus: Draw near to God
& Humble Yourselves Before God
Bible
Reading & Meditation Reference: James 4:8-10
Message
of the verse: “Draw near to God and
He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your
hearts, you double-minded. Be miserable
and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy to
gloom. Humble yourselves in the presence
of the Lord, and He will exalt you.”
(NASB) “Draw close to God, and
God will draw close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts,
you hypocrites. Let there be tears for
the wrong things you have done. Let there be sorrow and deep grief. Let there
be sadness instead of laughter, and gloom instead of joy. When you bow down before the Lord and admit
your dependence on him, he will lift you up and give you honor.” (NLT)
How can a believer draw near to
God? James says that
first of all we are to be clean or have a clean heart. The word for cleanse as described in the
Strong’s Concordance is:
“1b) in a moral sense
1b1) to free from defilement of sin and from faults
1b2) to purify from wickedness
1b3) to free from guilt of sin, to purify
1b4) to consecrate by cleansing or purifying
1b5) to consecrate, dedicate”
The goal
of every believer should be that of Romans 8:29, “For whom he did foreknow,
he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might
be the firstborn among many brethren.” The
more we grow and mature in our walk with the Lord, the more we will be like
Him, because in order to be like Him we have to draw near to Him with a clean
heart.
Humble yourselves before God
(4:9-10). What is the
opposite of humility? The word used here
for humble yourselves, “AV-humble
6, abase 5, humble (one’s) self 2, bring low 1; 14,” and
one of the meanings given from Strong’s is, “metaph. to bring into a humble condition, reduce to
meaner circumstances.” The
NLT seems to be giving a better idea of what the meaning of humble is, “When
you bow down before the Lord and admit your dependence on him, he will lift you
up and give you honor.” Now as we look at pride, which is the opposite
of humility we can see that it means to be lifted up, or to lift one’s self
up. As believers we are to lift up the
name of the Lord, to worship Him, to adore Him, to place Him above everything,
and when we have pride we are doing just like Satan did to cause him to fall
and that is to lift ourselves up.
Again we
can look at David to see an example of how a believer is to do the things that
are described in these verses. The two
Psalms that he wrote as a result of His sin gives us much insight into what God
would have us to do in order to Humble ourselves before Him, and how to draw near
to God, and also how we are to submit ourselves to God.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: It seems
to me that when God begins to move in my life that He puts His finger upon
areas of my life that He desires for me to change, and as I go through these
two trials that God is in the process of sending me through he is teaching me,
among other things that I am to put my trust in Him and not the money He has
entrusted me with, and that I have not been worshipping Him in a way that has
been pleasing to Him. I trust the Lord
will continue to work in my life to continue to make me more and more like my
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
The Word of God was refreshing to my heart and
encouragement to me this morning as I read it.
My
Steps of Faith Today: To
trust the Lord in these two trials He has lead me into. To continue to pray for the meeting today at
4:00 PM with Pastor Dunn and Bruce Konya, that the Lord would be glorified,
that if the things that I have been learning from these verses apply to this situation
in either one’s case that it would be cared for. I pray that they would see the similarities
that they have in their passion to help hurting people, and I pray that Bruce
would get a firm grasp on the Sovereignty of God so that he will trust the Lord
in a new and better way.
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