“Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.” James 4:8
Recommended Reading: James 4:1-8 “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
4 You adulterous people,[a] don’t you know that friendship with the worldmeans enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us[b]? 6 But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:
“God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.”[c]
7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
COMMENTS: Today’s scripture from James 4 is an important reminder to everyone, non-Christian, a recent convert, and a Christian of many years. We all are so prone to wonder from a close fellowship with Christ and rely more on our own mind and abilities and emotions to guide our words and actions. Most of the time we may seem to get away with it and many have for many years. But the longer we do that, the further from His side and influence we stray and the more unlike Him we slowly but surely are. So when we face a major decision or challenge, we are unprepared and are vulnerable to make a foolish or sinful and destructive choice.
Fellowship with Christ is Fellowship with the Holy Spirit is Fellowship with the Father. When we have fellowship with One, we have Fellowship with All. When we let the Holy Spirit abide in and with us guiding us and nudging us and helping us make wise choices, we let Christ and the Father do so too. Yet, the Holy Spirit is Who came at Pentecost to abide in each believer and become the real abiding presence of God fellowshipping with and guiding each believer with focus without rest or pause or distraction. Access to God is through the Holy Spirit’s abiding presence in our souls. We can’t see Him but we can feel His Presence. We can’t hear Him, but we can hear what He is saying to us. We can’t touch Him, but we can feel His presence. We can’t embrace Him, but we can feel His compassion and love and respond back with love and awe and worship to Him. Yet the purpose of the Holy Spirit’s abiding presence is to help us focus on Christ and give honor and worship and praise to Him. The Holy Spirit enables us to be as close to Christ as the disciples were and be instructed by Him as they were. But truth is, after receiving the Holy Spirit; even the disciples were emboldened and better prepared to do His Work than they were even during the 3 years of being with Christ. SO ARE WE!!
- We serve Him because we love Him, not because we are obligated or required to earn the reward of heaven.
- We serve Him because we are following His instruction made clearer because He is with us guiding and speaking to us all the time.
- We serve Him because He has changed us to want to.
- We serve Him because it is a far better life we choose.
- We serve Him because it provides a way to share this Good News and Gospel with others. Others He gives us a compassion for.
- We serve Him because we were designed to do so.
Well, this list could go one for volumes, but I’ll leave it there for now. When our priority and passion becomes drawing closer to Christ, we soon discover our priorities change. What we consider most important and most urgent begins to change. We also begin discovering that putting Him first and priority of focusing on fellowship with Him first each day, we soon realize that the rest of the day goes far better, things get done, but opportunities to brighten another’s day becomes a reality too.
I too am still discovering this but still struggle sustaining a meaningful relationship with Christ, struggling to maintain fellowship with the Holy Spirit. That is not God’s fault. It is mine because it still is hard praying and listening without seeing Him with my eyes and hearing Him with my ears. Besides, so much of what He asks me to do is not what I want to do or feel I need to do first. I suspect you so struggle like me too, right?
Well, He knows and He understands. But He doesn’t let us off the hook because He loves and cares for us. He so desires for us to grow and become more like Him because He knows we will be happier and stronger and successful and more full of life when we do become more like Him. He also knows others will be influenced by the change in us and do so too.
So let’s ask ourselves, what changes do we need to make? What priority changes do we need to make? What needs to change and how do we change to draw closer to Him and be in a more meaningful and consistent relationship with Him?
Draw near to Him! Draw near to the Holy Spirit! Draw near to Christ! Draw near to the Father! HE WILL DRAW NEAR TO YOU!!
If you wish, you can access my blog at “https://donsdevotions.wordpress.com“. There you will find 375 blog posts I have made plus a link to my devotional journal material archives from 2013 to present.
You may also access my Facebook page and request to be my friend and automatically receive my daily journal publications daily. My Facebook page is: https://www.facebook.com/Dondevotionals/ Many thanks to a pastor and dear brother in Christ in Nepal who set up the above Facebook page to help and encourage and give opportunity for more to explore and use my devotional blog materials.
My hope and prayer are, my blog and devotional materials will become a source of encouragement and tools in ministry for you.
Published by donsdevotions
Don McDaniel - Who am I?
Hello everyone and welcome to my devotional journal blog. In order to get acquainted and help you get to know me a bit better before considering following my blog, let me give you some background. I am a 74-year-old male and a retired engineer. I worked for a major supplier of underground mining equipment for nearly 40 years before retiring in 2012. Arlene and I have been happily married since April 1978 and have two grown – married children, one granddaughter and 2 step grandsons. I joined the local United Methodist church at age 12 after accepting Christ as my Savior at age 10 during revival services in that same church in 1961, so I have been a “Born Again” Christian all my teen years and adult life. Christ has helped and guided me all that time. He guided me in choosing my wife and life’s career. My life journey has included regrets and failures, but God has picked me up and protected and spared me from life threatening consequences and dangers more times than I can recall or count. But many I do recall and encourage and motivate me to trust and follow Christ with more passion than ever.
Christmas 2011 our daughter gave Arlene and I each a devotional journal. Journals were books with devotion for each day and space to give personal impressions and thoughts related to each devotion. Her desire was to have a lasting legacy she could refer back to and share with her children and grandchildren especially after we are gone. I was touched by that gesture. My parents and Arlene’s were devout Christians, so we would have greatly treasured having that from them, so we felt a sense of urgency to honor her request. I finished my journal first and returned it to our daughter the following Christmas. I’m glad I did it then because Parkinson’s has caused my hand writing to deteriorate since then. The exercise was such a blessing for me. Discipline of keeping journal helped me gain a deeper walk with Christ and greater discipline in honoring my time of prayer and devotion with Him each day. So, I decided to continue the practice but since I could not find a paper journal I liked, I decided to create my own. I had already been receiving electronic devotions by email every day from several sources, my favorite being “Turning Point” from Dr. David Jeremiah. What I decided to do was to include devotional scripture but add my own thoughts and comments only so there would be no issue of copyright infringement. Creating and maintaining journal by computer also addressed my deteriorating handwriting ability. I started an electronic devotion journal January 1, 2013 and have been faithful to that practice every day since. I prayed about method and level of distribution. My initial intent was to only share it with my two children by email, but quickly discovered others in my family, my church, and friends from work (both retired and still working) who knew me and wanted to be included in distribution when they learned what I was doing. I now distribute by email my daily journal at the beginning of each month to over 150 friends and relatives. God has richly blessed and encouraged me.
I am concerned with the state of our church and nation, and world for that matter, believing we are living in the end times the prophets of old and Christ have talked about in scripture, so time is short. I desire to be true to my Savior and a witness to help others come to a saving knowledge of Him and equipped to share His Good News too. If my journal can encourage and help others, I believe God wants me to share it. I struggled, for a time at first, because I know many others keep similar journals but only for their own edification and do not want to share them because they are private.
However, Christ has stirred my heart to share it as a witness tool.
Our son and daughter have a long-time friend who grew up with them who we also befriended nearly 25 years ago. He had a lot of family problems, so would gravitate to our family as a refuge and eventually thought of us as his adopted parents and he as our adopted son. We lost contact with him for some time when he grew up and left home. He traveled around the U.S. and eventually ended up in Ukraine where he resided for next 10 years. He had to return to the US to renew his visa and took opportunity to recommend I begin a blog of my devotions and helped me set it up. He is also an active blogger and has been an email subscriber to my journal for several months, so he has been suggesting I expand my distribution by starting a blog to get broader exposure. After reflection and prayer, I concluded God was in this, so he is helping me set up my blog site. This brief autobiography is my first entry.
He returned to Ukraine, then resided there until circumstanced made him decide to move back to US with his young son. This biography was my first post February 29, 2016 .
I have published 600 posts from 2016-2023 automatically sent to all my Facebook friends, published on WordPress to be accessible to anyone curious or seeking a deeper walk with God. I decided to take a sebatical to prepare for a new chapter. In 2014 I was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease which affects patient ability to walk, drive, do physical work, and eventually talk. By mid 2023 it became evident our home for last 42 years (previously owned by my parents for previous 44 years and by my mother's grandparents for 39 years before that) would eventually not meet my needs so we decided to sell it and move into 1st floor of a duplex we also owned that was the town school from 1855-1913. Likewise, the property was requiring more maintenance that I was no longer able to keep up with. 2023 involved selling our home and moving into apartment next door and then in early 2025 an opportunity to move closer to our daughter and granddaughter in Kentucky which was completed in May 2025. For a number of months I have been seeking direction seeking God's direction and timing to return to blogging as my journey with Parkinson's continues to unfold with God's guiding hand in mine.
I hope and pray my devotions will continue to be a blessing for you. God certainly has become closer and more real to me since started this blog in 2016. I have spent time with Him studying scripture and praying and listening and writing this journal. I will continue seeking God’s help and will welcome your input to make this site as meaningful as I can and true to God, who is motivating me to create and maintain it. I will also welcome input in order to make format more meaningful going forward.
Don & Arlene McDaniel
In His Service,
Email: mcdanieldonald769@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Don1951
If you wish, you can access my blog at “https://donsdevotions.wordpress.com“. There you will find 600+ blog posts I have made plus a link to my devotional journal material archives from 2013 to present (https://donsdevotions.wordpress.com/2016/03/02/link-to-dons-devotional-journal-entries-2013/ )
You may also access my Facebook page and request to be my friend and automatically receive my daily journal publications daily. My Facebook page is: https://www.facebook.com/Dondevotionals/ Many thanks to a pastor and dear brother in Christ in Nepal who set up the above Facebook page to help and encourage and give opportunity for more to explore and use my devotional blog materials. View all posts by donsdevotions
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