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Nearly every roundup of how to get closer to God Bible verses opens with the same line, and almost none of them print it whole. It shows up on the mug, the bookmark, the church bulletin as eleven words: “Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you.”
That is the first sentence of James 4:8. The verse has a second sentence, and the second sentence is the one with the instructions in it. If you searched how to get closer to God, you were not looking for a poster. You were looking for something to actually do tomorrow. The verses have that in them. You just have to read past the part that fits on a mug.
The Verse Everyone Quotes Half Of
Here it is, all of it: “Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded” (James 4:8).
Notice who is being spoken to. Not a crowd of people who feel spiritually flat. James has just spent seven verses on something much more ordinary and much more uncomfortable. “From whence come wars and fightings among you?” he asks (James 4:1). Then: “Ye lust, and have not … ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not” (James 4:2).
That is a church arguing. People wanting things, resenting each other for having them, and never once bringing the want to God. Because ye ask not. And it is to those people, mid-argument, that the sentence “Draw nigh to God” is addressed.
Which means the Bible’s most-quoted answer to “how do I get closer to God” is not aimed at a feelings problem at all.
“Double Minded” Is Two Words Doing a Lot of Work
The phrase at the end — “ye double minded” — is one Greek word, dipsychos. It literally means two-souled.
Here is the part worth sitting with. Look it up in a New Testament concordance and there are only two places it appears in the whole New Testament: James 1:8 and James 4:8. Both in this one short letter. It is very close to being James’s own word, and he uses it twice for the same condition. In chapter 1 he says it plainly: “A double minded man is unstable in all his ways” (James 1:8).
So the diagnosis is not “you do not feel close enough.” It is that you are facing two directions, and the part of you that wants God and the part that wants the other thing are both still standing there, pulling.
If that lands, it should land as relief. Nobody can manufacture a feeling on command. But anyone can name a second thing they are holding, and that is doable before breakfast.
Only One Half of the Verse Is a Command
In the Greek, both halves of “Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you” use the very same verb — but not in the same form. The first is a command addressed to the people reading: you, draw near. The second is neither a command nor a condition. It is a plain statement in the future tense about what God does — the way you would say “the sun will come up.”
So the verse is not a bargain. Half of it is yours to do; the other half is reported to you as a fact about God. You do not have to generate the response. You only have to make the move.
Hebrews Uses a Different Word — and a Different Tense
The other verse people reach for is Hebrews 10:22: “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith.”
In English it looks like the same instruction as James. In Greek it is a different verb entirely, in the present tense — closer to let us keep drawing near than take one step. Nearness here is a habit, not an event.
And the sentence three verses earlier is doing the heavy lifting: “Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us” (Hebrews 10:19-20). The door is already open before anybody is told to walk through it. Hebrews does not ask you to earn the access — it assumes it, and asks you to use it again tomorrow.
The Psalm That Ends on “Draw Near” Begins on Envy
This is the one that surprised me.
Psalm 73 finishes with the line that belongs on every list of these verses: “But it is good for me to draw near to God” (Psalm 73:28). A clean, warm conclusion. Except look where the psalm starts.
“But as for me, my feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped. For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked” (Psalm 73:2-3).
Asaph is not drifting because his quiet time got stale. He is drifting because he looked at people who do not care about God and wanted their life. Two-souled, exactly like James. And he says straight out that thinking it through did not work: “When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me; Until I went into the sanctuary of God” (Psalm 73:16-17).
He did not out-argue the envy. He went somewhere the view was different, and the view did the work.
Two writers, centuries apart, in different languages, both tie the distance to divided wanting — and both answer it with a move, not a mood.
One Verse That Keeps This Honest
None of this is a trick to perform, and Scripture says so itself: “Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me” (Isaiah 29:13). You can do all the near-looking things and not be doing the near thing — which is why the steps below are worth nothing as performance and everything as honesty.
How to Get Closer to God, From the Verses Taken Whole
Put the four passages side by side and they give you something specific:
- Name the second thing. Not to feel bad about it — just to say it out loud to God. “I want You, and I also want this other thing, and I have been pretending I only want one.” That is the dipsychos problem, out in the open.
- Ask, in plain words. James says the fighting ran on for one reason: “ye ask not.” Asking is the move the whole chapter is missing. If praying plainly is the part that feels awkward, how to pray to God starts with the one Jesus actually taught.
- Go where the view is clear. Asaph went into the sanctuary. For us the nearest equivalent is the Gospels: a short, specific scene from the life of Jesus, read slowly. This piece on how to get closer to God follows Philip, who asked to see God and was told he had been looking at the answer all along.
- Do it again tomorrow. That is the present tense in Hebrews. Not a breakthrough. A habit. Ten minutes that you repeat. Quiet time with God gets into what to do on the days it gets interrupted.
What Changes for You
Picture a morning six weeks from now. Nothing cinematic has happened; the coffee is the same, the inbox is the same.
What is different is that you are no longer waiting to feel close before you act close. You have a thing you do, and you know it is not being scored. When the envy shows up — somebody else’s easier life, somebody else’s results — you recognise it now, because Psalm 73 named it for you, and you know where to take it instead of carrying it for a week.
And God has stopped being a distance to be closed. Closeness turns out not to be a feeling you achieve. It is a direction you keep facing.
A Path Built for Facing That Direction
The verses say go look, and keep going. They do not say which page to open on a Tuesday morning when you have nine minutes. That is the gap 30 Days Walking with Jesus is built to fill.
It walks through the life of Jesus in the Gospels one day at a time, in under 10 minutes a day — a beginner-friendly reading plan, so you never have to decide where to start. You get 30 short devotional videos, each under 60 seconds, 30 full-chapter audio readings for the days you would rather listen, a complete PDF study guide with journal prompts, and 5 quick-reference scripture guides. The prompts are a good place to keep naming the second thing.
It is free. No payment, no card, no upsell, and it is yours forever on any device. The words of Jesus should not sit behind a paywall.
Questions People Are Asking
Q: What Bible verses tell you how to get closer to God?
A: The four most direct ones are James 4:8 (“Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded”), Hebrews 10:22 (“Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith”), Psalm 73:28 (“But it is good for me to draw near to God”), and Isaiah 29:13, which warns that it is possible to draw near with the mouth while the heart stays far off. Read whole rather than clipped, all four describe a move you make rather than a feeling you wait for.
Q: What does “draw nigh to God and he will draw nigh to you” actually mean?
A: In James 4:8 both halves use the same Greek verb, but only the first half is a command addressed to the reader. The second half is a plain statement in the future tense about what God does in response. So the verse is not a bargain you have to hold up your end of emotionally — one half is an action you take, and the other half is simply told to you as a fact.
Q: What does “double minded” mean in James 4:8?
A: It is one Greek word, dipsychos, which literally means “two-souled.” A concordance lists only two places it occurs in the whole New Testament, James 1:8 and James 4:8, where James writes, “A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.” It describes someone pulled in two directions at once rather than someone who lacks feeling, which is why James 4 opens on arguments and envy inside a church rather than on spiritual dryness.
Q: Why do I feel far from God even though I pray?
A: Psalm 73 is worth reading if that is where you are. It ends on “it is good for me to draw near to God,” but it opens with the writer admitting, “I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked” (Psalm 73:2-3). He does not think his way out of it; he says it only changed “until I went into the sanctuary of God” (Psalm 73:17). Distance is often about divided wanting rather than effort, and the answer in both Psalm 73 and James 4 is to name it and go somewhere the view of God is clearer.
Q: How long does it take to feel closer to God?
A: Scripture does not put a timeline on it, and anyone who gives you one is guessing. What the verses do say is that the pattern is repeated rather than instant: Hebrews 10:22 is in the present tense, closer to “let us keep drawing near” than to a single step. A short, consistent daily habit fits what the passages describe better than waiting for one big moment.
