Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
This passage gives us direction that we can follow in our worship. James says that we are to draw near to God, wash our hands, purify our hearts, and humble ourselves. James says that God will draw near to us and lift us up when we do these things. As wonderful as this is, this should not be our primary motivation in worship. We should worship God because He is worthy of our worship, not so that He will lift us up. Sometimes we have to rethink the way in which we worship God. We don’t always think to purify our hearts, we don’t always think to humble ourselves before God, but this is what He desires from us. When we worship God in the way that He has told us to worship Him, we will see Him in a whole new way. We will see Him as He is.
God wants us to worship Him, but He doesn’t tell us to come to Him however we want to. God has given us the way to worship Him. When we follow His plan for worship, we can come into His presence and meet with Him. When we try it our way, we cannot come to Him. We must acknowledge our sin, confess our sin, and humble ourselves and then we can worship Him, then we can see Him. As we come to God in this way, we see Him lifted high, we see Him for who He truly is and we see ourselves for who we are. God is calling us to worship Him. God wants us to worship Him. But God has told us how we are to worship Him. There is a place for rejoicing and celebrating with Him. But first we need to come humbly understanding our sin. We can have such incredible times of worship with the Lord when we come His way. We when see our sin and we see His holiness and we understand His forgiveness, we will worship, we will celebrate, and we will rejoice!
1. Do you come to God His way when you worship Him?
2. Do you think about God’s holiness when you worship Him?
3. Do you think about your own sinfulness when you worship God?
4. Do you need to change the way you worship God based on what this passage teaches?
Today, reflect again on God’s holiness and your sinfulness. Remind yourself that you must be humble when you come to God.
A Pastor's Thoughts 