James 4:9, “Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into gloom.”

     If we are going to draw close to God we must deal with our sin.  The question becomes, “How do we know if we are really dealing with our sin?”  Dealing with sin is not just a matter of confessing it and being forgiven.  If we are truly dealing with the sin in our lives we will come to a place where we start to see the ugliness of our sin.  We’ll see it for what it is and how it grieves our Father.  If we are really turning from it to draw near to God, it will start to cause our heart to ache.  We will actually start to mourn over it.  We’ll weep because we see the gross ugliness of it.  It will cause us to weep and cry because of it.  When this starts to happen we can be assured that we are dealing with it and are well on the way to seeing it leave our lives forever.  And that’s good news.  So if we’re ready to really draw near to God, the question becomes, “Have you had a good cry lately?”                God Bless,  Rusty