 There was something brought up in church that kind of reminded me of something that I've always said and I'll keep saying, and that is this, we all have the same problem. I don't care if you're a Christian, if you're a non-Christian, I don't care if you are Calvinist, I don't care if you are a Minian, I don't care if you're dispensational, I don't care if you're Muslim, Hindu, what have you, we all have the same problem. Now the degree to this problem will determine how much trouble a person is in, and that is this. Our issue with mankind and God is proximity. What do I mean? How far or how close we are to God? I don't care what it is you're going through, and this is going to help someone if you let it. Whether you're struggling with some sort of addiction, whether you're struggling with pride or lust, whether you're struggling with anything you name it, the issue is proximity. Whether you are a Christian or non-Christian, especially if you're a non-Christian, it's proximity. How close you are to God. Think about it this way. Here on this side is sin and everything that is negative that you can think of over here. And over here you've got God. The closer you get to God, well then what happens? The further you get away from those sins, those issues. Now the more you want to deal with those sins, those issues, face to face, the further you are away from God. We don't have to find some 12 step program to go over here and confront it. No, just get closer to God, the closer you get to Him. He's better at relieving you or delivering you from whatever the ailment is. Be it physical, spiritual, mental, what have you. God has bested that, but I'm thinking of a passage. James 4, let's go to it and let's just see something. I want to point out something that I think is pretty important for us to remember when we do draw close to Him. James says draw near to God. Well, let's start starting in verse 7. James says, submit therefore to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you. So that's how it's set up. Resist the devil, but first submit therefore to God. Submit to God and then he says resist the devil. What will the devil do now? The devil can be again everything over here, sin, the world. So if as you resist him, submit to God. Look what he says verse 8, draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Now I want to point out something that is kind of embedded in here. You see it, but I want to give you the tense of the verbs that's used here. He says, cleanse your hands, use sinners and purify your hearts. You double-minded. What you need to see is, and I'm going to use some broken English to kind of make the point clear. But he says, cleanse your hands. And then he says also to purify your heart. Now the word for purify is part of the word hagas or hagyos where we get the word holy or sanctified. But purify your hearts, but he also says to cleanse. And so in the word that's used here, both of these words are heiress active imperative. Imperative means it is a command. You do this, but it is heiress, meaning in the past. So here's kind of how the broken English way of saying it, but it kind of helped you understand. You better have had cleansed your hands. You better have had purified your heart as or before you're drawing near. And we say before because remember this is heiress. So this had to have been done in the past as you draw near to him getting closer to him. There's a way that we get close to him. It's not that we get close to him on our terms. We draw near to him on his terms. Recall in Leviticus 10 the story of Ney Davide who had approached God in the wrong way, the wrong fashion. We say with strange fire. What exactly that was? That varies depending on who you listen to. But that's not the important point. The important point is what Aaron says or what Aaron is told by Moses from God. So let's go to Leviticus 10 verse three. Then Moses said to Aaron, it is what the Lord spoke saying by those who come near to me. I will be treated as holy and before all people I will be honored. So Aaron therefore kept silent. Well, obviously Aaron is upset. He's bothered. He's grieved. His sons have been literally burned. Fire came from heaven and consumed his sons. And the response that he gets and remember this Aaron and for everyone else, including us. And this is how we draw this with James. Anyone that is going to approach God. This is why he says you better have had cleanse your hands. You better have had purified your hearts. When you approach him, when you come near to him, do so in a holy fashion. You're not coming to the therapist. You're not coming to your appointment or talking to your friends. This is God. And if you approach him, you will treat him or regard him as holy. Purify your heart, cleanse your hands. Don't come to him in any old sort of tripe fashion. Come to him as though he is God. And so as you draw closer to him with that kind of heart, that kind of attitude, then guess what will happen? The things that bother you, the trouble you, the addictions, the problems, the things, the weight and the sin that holds you back. That easily as the Bible says easily, easily trip us up or beseech us. Those are the things that God will start dealing with because you have come to him in an honest fashion. You're not coming to him holding on to the sin. You're not coming to him with your way of dealing with things. You're not coming on to him as you are trying to tell him what to do. No, you're coming to him in a holy, holy, humble fashion, asking for his face and then letting him take off the things that he desires not to be in you or on you. That's what that passage means. That's the full clarity and I think that's the beauty and the important thing to remember when it comes to letting God deal with us, but also just to have a relationship with him just even more so because it may not even be a particular sin or addiction or anything like that, but just having this closest with him to arm him as Lord. And so we do that and watch how he, as a matter of fact, you don't have to watch how he keeps things away from you because you won't even see them. There will be so many things you may find out in heaven. I don't know, but there will be so many things that the enemy doesn't bring your way. God will have defended you in that fashion because you have placed yourself in it. That doesn't mean that you won't have any sort of worries. No, it doesn't mean that at all. He's not going to protect you from anything. As a matter of fact, he's going to allow you to go through some things in order for you to be a witness of how he can bring you out of. But the good thing is, whatever you go through, it's not going to be as big because you've got this comfort, this joy. Why? Because you've drawn closer to him. Amen.