Come close to God, and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world. James 4:8
Nothing discredits a person more than finding out that their lives do not match what they claim to believe and how they claim to live. For example, if you send your child to a driver’s education course and find out that the instructor was just in a preventable accident for which they were at fault, you would probably take your child out immediately and search for an instructor with an immaculate driving record. Why? That instructor may preach of the importance of safe driving, but they do not live out that teaching on a daily basis. The same is true for followers of Christ. If we claim to be followers of Christ, people, especially the children in our lives, are watching us. They are watching to see that we are people of character, that our words match our actions. They are looking to see that we are living pure lives.
James, the half-brother of Jesus, wrote in James 4 the importance of living with purity or consistent character. “Come close to God, and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world” (verse 8). According to this verse, part of being a pure person is living consistently without having divided loyalty between God and the world. After all, Jesus Himself said, “No one can serve two masters” (verse 24). Living with divided loyalty means that one really has no loyalty. Their words do not match their actions.
There is an alternative to living with divided loyalty, however. What is it? James tells us the secret. “Come close to God, and God will come close to you.” If we want to live pure, consistent lives, we must draw close to God in prayer, Bible study, and worship. When this happens, God changes you from the inside out. After all, you know from experience that we become like the people we surround ourselves with, so who better to surround ourselves with than Him, the One who loves us perfectly and created us?
As we consider these verses, we must take time to evaluate our lives. Are we living purely, without divided loyalty, or is our loyalty split between God and the world? After evaluating, it’s time to confess areas where our loyalty has been divided (that is what Paul means when he writes, “cleanse your hands, you sinners”) and then draw near to Him. In the process, we will become more like Him and reflect Him more and more.
Take time today to pray. As you pray, ask God about your character. Specifically, ask Him if your words match your actions? Ask Him if you are living a consistent life. Then, be ready if He reveals areas that need improvement. Ask Him to help you live a life of character where what you say matches the way you live your life.
Read James 4:1-9 (NLT)
What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Don’t they come from the evil desires at war within you? You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it. And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure.
You adulterers! Don’t you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God? I say it again: If you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God. Do you think the Scriptures have no meaning? They say that God is passionate that the spirit he has placed within us should be faithful to him. And he gives grace generously. As the Scriptures say,
“God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come close to God, and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world. Let there be tears for what you have done. Let there be sorrow and deep grief. Let there be sadness instead of laughter, and gloom instead of joy.
©2024 Sagebrush Church
