How Can God Bless America?
James 4:7-10
1. Submit to God
- to comply with the will of someone of higher rank
- His Word must be the ultimate authority
2. Resist the Devil
- We usually resist God and tolerate the Devil
3. Draw Near to God
- genuine faith
- coming to God in humble contrition and reverent worship
4. Cleanse Your Hands
- Repent - put away your sin
5. Purify Your Hearts
- receive the cleansing God offers
6. Lament
- speaks of misery and affliction. It describes the heartache we should feel when we realize our own wretchedness as sinners
- we don’t deserve divine blessing. It is the cry of the heart that knows it has offended the righteousness of God and has no hope apart from God’s mercy.
7. Mourn
- speaks of the deep grief and remorse that comes with understanding how sinful we are and feeling our own responsibility for our guilt.
8. Weep
- Weeping is the natural manifestation of true misery and mourning.
- Our misery, our mourning, and our tears must flow from true sorrow over the fact of our sin, not a superficial regret over sin’s consequences.
9. Get Serious
- when we contemplate our own sin, it ought to make us sorrowful, sober, and serious-minded.
10. Humble Yourselves