Grace to the humble

Jas 4:5 Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?
Jas 4:6 But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.
Jas 4:7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

The spirit that dwells in us lusts to envy. This is the carnal flesh nature in us. It is ONLY by the grace of God we can live as our carnal natures fight to give into the lusts that surround us. We have to surrender to the grace of God, we have to fall at the feet of our Savior understanding that we are NOTHING without Him, nothing. And by nothing I mean nothing good at all whatsoever. Our carnal nature strives against God. We MUST choose to be humble before God, to recognize that He is everything while we are nothing, nothing at all good without Him.

We MUST submit ourselves to God!

Satan does not want us to submit ourselves to God. Satan would have us forever live without being humble in the sight of God. Satan would have us value ourselves- our vain desires, our envying lusts, our self-centeredness all above God. As long as we are focused on ourselves we are NOT focused on God. When we pray for God's will to be done, are we really praying for God to let our will be done? This isn't how it is to be. God's will, not ours must be done and we need to submit ourselves to God. We need to offer our lives to God. We might not see where we are living for God, but we HAVE to continuously submit to God, to give Him our lives to use for His will. Day in and day out those men and women recorded in God's word as being submitted unto Him, lived their lives not in one epic battle after another throughout their lives but they lived as we live. They had a daily existence beyond their glorious moments recorded in the Bible. David did not slay Goliath daily. Moses did not part the Red Sea every single day. Abraham was not called to sacrifice Isaac on a weekly basis. These great men of God had their trials and tribulations, they had their day to day lives that they needed to choose to submit to God even when they faced monumental temptations to give into their carnal natures. Did they never fail? No, in fact they did fail on more than one occasion. It took more than a single day for David to lust after and take a married woman to his bed. It took more than a mere day for David to send that woman's husband off to be killed. Their epic failures produced epic forgiveness. Their epic failures allow us to comprehend that they were mere human beings just like you and I, not special, protected men of God - sinless and perfect. They failed and they sought forgiveness, they repented and submitted themselves to God over and over just like we must do. As these renown men of God lived day after day it wasn't extraordinary, but ordinary in many, many ways. We have to live our day to day lives submitted to God and NOT in the hope of obtaining signs that we are God's, but with FAITH that we are God's in our everyday ordinary lives. If God chooses to use us for a grand purpose that is HIS will, but it's more likely God will choose to use us for His purposes that seem to us to be quite ordinary.

Jas 4:7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Resist.

We resist a lot of things in our lives don't we? We resist the efforts of others to get us to do things they want to do that we have no interest in. We resist the temptation of doing things we know are harmful to us yet desirable- maybe not every time- but we do know what it is like to resist temptation. We resist a lot as we are growing up and being told to do things that are contrary to what we'd rather do. We put up resistance and we know what it's like. Sometimes the resistance is easy because we don't want to do something, other times resistance is extremely difficult because we want to do something and are fighting not to do it. When we are called to resist the devil it's not as if we are being called to resist some ugly, fire breathing monster intent on harming us, we'd find it very easy to resist such a creature. We are being called to resist a cunning deceiver that will exploit every single one of our weaknesses. We are being told to resist the evil one who disguises himself in countless ways and each disguise is fitted to deceive us into believing we are depriving ourselves of something good when we resist. Temptations are ONLY temptations when we are desirous of the thing we are tempted by. You cannot tempt a sweet eater with a coconut cream pie if he detests coconut. You can tempt a sweet eater with chocolate cake if he absolutely loves chocolate. You can't tempt a man with another woman if he is completely satisfied with his wife. You cannot tempt a thief to steal a diamond when all he desires to steal is cars. You understand what I'm saying don't you? We are not being told to resist the devil - the evil angel being invisible to us we are being told to resist the temptations that evil invisible being loves to tease us with. As we submit ourselves to God we are allowing God to have His will in us and we will as a matter of course live as the word of God has told us to live. And when we submit ourselves to God, the devil will become very upset and attack us- not by beating us up with his invisible evil angel fists but by throwing all those temptations at us- tempting us to leave God in favor of living for our own selfish desires of which there are many. Submit to God and resist the devil. When we resist we are in truth reaffirming our submission to God, we are growing closer to God and the closer we are to God the less able the devil is to tempt us to himself. It's a constant submission to God and a constant resistance. Even Christ in the wilderness wasn't tempted once and then left alone, Satan tried again and again.

We can't submit ourselves once and resist once, it has to be on a daily basis- a living basis- on an AS needed basis- which is much more often than we want to believe. This is what it means to be an active Christian- we are in a war and our enemy never sleeps.

By the grace of God we will submit ourselves fully to Him over and over again, resisting the devil always!

In our Savior's amazing love!

Amen.