Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.

Once we believe that God will lead us in our lives, the next area of focus must be on our willingness to follow. In fact, this was the first invitation Jesus gave to His initial followers. We read in Matthew 4:19, "Follow me, and I will turn you into fishers of people." The word "follow" means to come here and implies that if we are going to be followers of Jesus Christ, we must follow close to Him and not from a distance. (This is not contradictory to my previous thoughts - I believe we should keep our perspective in that God is God and we are not; but stay close enough to Him to have an intimacy with our Father.)


The Jews had a saying for their young apprentices that they should follow so closely to their rabbi, their teacher, that they walk in his dust. This is true for us as well. In fact, James 4:8 say it this way: "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you." The concept of drawing near is that two things are in such close proximity to the other that they appear to be joined together. We have before us a leader Who is the greatest example anyone could ever have. Let's decide today to be a devoted follower of Jesus Christ. One cannot effectively lead others spiritually until one has learned to follow Christ Himself.

What an encouragement it was tonight to share God's word with over 500 people at The Mine bible study at Cornerstone, I will miss you all during our 2 week spring break!