So I’ve been in the USA preaching this week, and felt led to this passage, which is not what a visiting speaker would usually choose if he wanted to get invited back! 

What a passage! Just 9 verses, which include one of the worst and one of the best five verses in the whole Bible (which has 31,102 in total). I started with a few questions to reflect on, but you’ll need to listen to it to get the full impact:

Listen to the audio or download here:

“So I want to start with a question, a crucial question: What do you think about God? Because that’s the most important thing about you.

How much do you want of God? Because nobody has less of God than they want…

How close to God do you want to be? Because you will be as close to God as you want…

You see, if you draw near to God, He will draw near to you (James 4:8). You can have as much of God as you want, and can be as close to Him as you want, but many of us have the wrong conception of God. So we don’t want that much of Him and don’t want Him too close, rather holding Him at arms’ length, having a relationship with Him on our terms, keeping Him in the passenger seat whilst we drive where we want to go. And there’s shocking imagery in this passage that, if you have the wrong conception of God, will only make things worse…”