Draw Nigh to God

Jas 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.

Draw nigh to God.

Heb 7:19  For the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did; by the which we draw nigh unto God.

How do we draw near to God?  ONLY through JESUS CHRIST.

Heb 10:22  Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.

Only our Savior can save us, cleanse us.

In the old testament times right up to the time before Jesus' death, the way to draw near to God was through sacrifice, and through the yearly cleansing. People would bring sacrificial offerings to God's temple and have God's priests minister there as they offered their sin offerings. People KNEW there had to be a shedding of blood, or else there would be NO remission from their sins.

Heb_9:22  And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.

Once our Savior took on the role of our Sacrifice it was through HIM, through HIS BLOOD that we are saved, that we are cleansed.

So here in this verse James 4:8 we are told to… CLEANSE our hands and PURIFY our hearts.

Before we can present ourselves to God we must feel the weight of our filthiness, of our impurities.

So many people feel the horrible weight of sin and wish for that weight to be lifted off them, because to have it lifted off means that we've been forgiven and that sin is no longer upon us, right? Yet for how long after you are forgiven and all the weight is removed from your spiritual shoulders do you remain cleansed and pure? A second?  A minute? An hour? A whole day? More? Until the next sin, which could truly take place the second after you've been forgiven, couldn't it? It only takes a moment for an impure thought to stain ourselves once again.

People love the idea of once forgiven always forgiven because they feel they now have a free pass to forgiveness and every sin committed after accepting Christ as their Savior, repenting, and being baptized, is automatically forgiven. It's not true. You can TURN back from God, and sin does that. Un-confessed, unrepentant sin is a separator between us and God.

We need to forever recognize our need for our Savior. It's a constant need, an endless need, a need we will have forever. There will never come a time when we no longer need our Savior and the gift of His forgiveness.

We only have hope in our submitting to God, and we submit to God by drawing close to Him and as we draw close to Him we are able to see just how vile and filthy we are. When we recognize our sins we MUST ask for forgiveness with a true heart full of repentance, only then can we be cleansed, and our hearts made pure.  To think that we have something of our own that can cleanse and purify us is a fallacy. We are made clean and purified by growing closer and closer to our Savior.

Recognizing our sin put the nails through the hands and feet of our Savior and drove that spear into His side, is realizing the horror of sin, and by the grace of God we are enlightened by the Holy Spirit to recognize the filth of every sin in our lives. There is NO sin that is pretty and clean. There does not exist a sin of a pure heart.  Sin is filth and stains everything it comes in contact with.

We need to really see the awfulness of sin- every sin- so that when we do sin it produces a true repentance, a true desire to no longer sin.

Drawing nigh to God- recognizing our NEED of God. When we recognize our NEED of God, He will acknowledge us and draw closer to us. 

Just as it is truly wonderful to be clean physically, it is truly wonderful to be clean spiritually, purified. We MUST wash in the blood of our Savior so HE can cleanse us with His blood. We wash in His blood by recognizing Him as our SAVIOR, accepting that He sacrificed His life for us, knowing He lives for us and will not be complete until we are with Him once again when He returns to bring All that are His home with Him.

All in HIS amazing LOVE.

What causes the devil to flee?

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

Resist the devil through submission to God, and he will flee from us. 

Why will the devil flee? What causes him to flee from us?

The devil left off tempting Christ in the wilderness after Christ resisted him by using the Word of God to refute all the temptation being thrown at Him.  Was this an example for us? YES!

If our Savior had to use the Word of God to resist the devil what makes us think that we won't have to do the same thing?

Sure, we aren't face to face with the devil. But we face temptations all the time. The trouble is we don't view them as temptations coming directly from the devil.

A lot of the time we seem to act instinctively towards sinning rather than not sinning. The little lie, the little misconception might pop out of our mouths without us ever truly having a debate about whether or not we want to choose to sin.

Not every temptation is forthright and time friendly.  That piece of chocolate cake in the fridge beckoning to you when you've already had your piece of cake for the day, well, you have time to contemplate that cake sitting in there. You begin to war with *yourself* over the pros and cons of consuming that cake, surfeiting, gluttony are words that begin to ring in your ears. This war you are having with *yourself* is truly a war you are having with the devil though he'd much rather you just keep thinking you are only fighting yourself, it is more palpable to us to fight with ourselves than recognize the enemy of God is fighting with us wanting us to choose HIS side over GOD'S, choose HIS ways over GOD'S ways. If the devil were there physically before us, urging us to indulge in our appetites, what do you think you'd do? Would you want to give into that vile creature? If the devil were present wouldn't we have to realize that we were actually in the midst of the battle between good and evil, GOD and the devil? Wouldn't we have to realize we are making a choice between God and the devil?  It's not simply a little harmless temptation at all, but a confrontation in the Spiritual battle.  This is a REAL skirmish you are having and yet the devil doesn't want us to believe that at all- remember- you are warring with yourself, not him (according to him the great deceiver!)

Back to those times when you aren't contemplating some temptation, but out of nowhere you are suddenly face to face with the choice and it's an instantaneous choice, happening right then and there and uhoh, you lie perhaps to save yourself some embarrassment.  Then right after you've lied you feel the weight of what you've done. You lied. You know it's wrong and the guilt is there present and accounted for and yet you don't admit you've lied, you wallow in the guilt because to confess to the one you lied to would be worse than the embarrassment you would have felt had you not lied earlier. A huge tangled web of deceit is being woven and Satan loves those webs. So there you are, you didn't have time to wage the battle, in fact you didn't have time to don your armor, you were just suddenly sinning so how do you resist that sort of sinning?

We said earlier that submitting to God is resisting the devil. How can we keep in a constant state of submission?  And shouldn't we have  our Spiritual armor on all the time? 

We aren't perfect, we aren't sinless, only our SAVIOR is perfect and sinless.  Is this an excuse we can use?  The I'm not perfect excuse. No. There is NO excusing our sins away, our sins must be confessed, repented of, and they will be forgiven, but they are NOT excused.

Every single sin needs confessing and repenting of, and this is a real HEART felt repentance, not mere mouthing of the words.

We must RESIST the devil.   When it is at all possible we must use our Savior's example and use the REAL word of GOD to resist satan. When we recognize we are having a spiritual confrontation we really SHOULD go to the word of God, not just try and think it away or wish it away on our own.  And when things happen so fast- when we are stabbed with one of satan's darts before we even realize we are confronting him- we must confess, repent, and seek sincere forgiveness from our SAVIOR.

Remember this--  it's a couple verses I use a lot--

Rom 7:24  O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
Rom 7:25  I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord

We have a SAVIOR and it's to HIM we must always go whenever we are warring with the devil. We must go to Him and submit to Him. We must believe that He is a God of LOVE and all that He asks of us is for our own good. Every battle we are in is somehow going to make us stronger in our faith as we are refined by the fire of affliction.  We must submit to our God in choosing HIM over the devil.

The devil will flee when we are submitted to God, when we choose to let God be our Savior and recognize Him as such. This is an ACTIVE submission, not a one time activation and never think about it again. This is a submission you have to CHOOSE often and always, never getting to a place where you've chosen to submit enough. Yesterday's submission does NOT guarantee your submission for today or tomorrow.

Again using the analogy of marriage- your marriage vows are renewed daily when you choose to honor them daily, right? When you choose to disregard your marriage vows, no longer honoring them, you are in danger of ending your marriage, you are putting your marriage in jeopardy.  All it takes is one day of no longer honoring the vows, one hour, one minute, right?  You must make the choice to honor your vows, just as we MUST make the choice to submit to our God.  You are not forced to stay with your spouse, people leave their spouses daily, choosing to dissolve their marriages.  You choose to stay with your marriage partner, it's a choice.  And we must choose our God daily!

The devil will flee when you are fully submitted to God. Does that mean you'll never have to resist the devil again, that he'll never come back?  No, absolutely not.  Sometimes he'll come back right away, other times he'll wait, and every single time we must resist him by continuing to fully submit to God. And truly we must all strive to be in a constant state of Submission. Sometime it will seem as if the devil's attacks will never end. We have to remember that  even if it feels like we'll never have a reprieve, or that he'll ever flee leaving us in any sort of peace, in the end when it truly matters most Satan cannot claim the eternal life of one submitted fully to God, he'll have no recourse but to FLEE!  PRAISE GOD!

All by the GRACE of our GOD!
ALL through HIS LOVE!

Jesus- Our Perfect Example of Perfect Submission to God

From yesterday-

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

'In that submission comes resistance towards the Devil who would have us never yield ourselves to God. The last thing the Devil wants is our submission towards God because he knows when we are submitted to God that he cannot touch our eternal life and that is the thing he wants most from us- our eternal life.'

Why do you suppose it is that a lot of people who seemingly reject God and embrace Satan's ways have what we'd call a good life? They make lots of money, they have power, fame. I'm not going to say, and will never say, that Satan controls all the rich, famous, powerful people. I am going to and will always say that Satan controls most of them. Satan could careless what devices he uses to keep us from eternal life.  If some are kept his by riches, great. If others are kept his by adversity, wonderful. If giving fame to others will keep them from God, Satan is thrilled.  Some curse God when they face rough times and others embrace Him. Some bless God when they gain riches, and others… well, most are thrilled and will seldom curse God for good things. And while they might not curse God they may grow seemingly closer to God as they receive what they perceive are blessings, but truthfully a lot of those who do this are the first to curse God when bad things begin to happen and so you KNOW that the relationship they've forged with God is superficial and not a true one. They are only God's when good happens and when bad strikes they blame God. 

There are as many variations of relationships we can forge as there are grains of sand on the sea shore. No two relationships are completely the same.

The ultimate end to all our lives is one of permanent life or permanent death, nothingness.

Satan isn't so much concerned with our temporary death sleep except to ONLY get us into that death sleep before we are God's. If he can get us to die in our sins, unrepentant, unregenerate to the new life in Christ, then he's thrilled because he has claimed another for his side.  If HE is going to meet his ultimate end, he wants to take as many of us human beings with him as he possibly can and this is his goal, his reason for what he does. He would deprive God of as many of His possible children as he can.

God created human beings lower than the angels, and yet, it was an angel who introduced sin and then encouraged humans to sin.  That angel had NO ONE, NO BEING whatsoever encouraging him to sin. 

Just as a child who grows up in a wonderful environment with truly no horrors that can infect many childhoods, and that child turns out to be filled with evil.  People look to the parents to blame them. People want to learn of that sicko's warped, deranged upbringing that turned him or her into that evil creature. It's NOT always true that there is a horrific childhood to blame.  So how does it happen? It happens with the choices we make .

Two children in the same environment and one turns out great the other horrible so what's to blame? The choices the individuals made shaped them. We make choices. Both could have been confronted by the choice to commit sin, but only one may have embraced that sin while the other shunned it.

Our choices shape us and will always shape us.

If Satan can influence our choices to his design then he's going to do it, no matter what that means. He stops at NOTHING to urge us to sin.  Just as we know and believe that he influenced our first parents, he influences each of us. He doesn't sleep, he doesn't have to rest at all, he can work ceaselessly to get us to be his, on his side.

SUBMIT to GOD.

SUBMISSION to GOD is our ONLY protection, our ONLY means of resisting Satan. You cannot submit to God and God's ways, and fall to Satan's evil. It's only when we STOP submitting that we are overcome by sin. 

Our SAVIOR was the perfect example of perfect submission to the will of God. Jesus' entire life was one of submission to the Father God.

We must cling to our SAVIOR, cling to HIS righteousness and pray for the same submissiveness, the same yielding to God that He had and has towards Him.

Remember, Christ could do NOTHING without the FATHER. He dare NOT do anything without the FATHER! The Father is LIFE, the Father is LOVE! Choosing anything other than the FATHER is choosing death and evil, it may not seem so. A lot of sins seem completely harmless because the BIGGER picture is completely lost. We cannot afford to lose the BIGGER picture, yet for many the BIGGER picture is completely lost and they like it that way.  The bigger picture reveals God, it reveals us and our relationship with God. Unfortunately many don't even want to think about God at all or their relationship with Him.

Please Lord help us to CHOOSE YOU always! Help us SUBMIT to YOU and in that submission resist the Devil who would steal our eternal life with YOU and YOUR LOVE.

Help us LORD! Save US!

Submission to God = Resistence to the Devil

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

We must submit.

When you submit you yield yourself, you give yourself over to the control of another.

Today many couples have had the part of the wedding vow about wives submitting to their husbands omitted because its connotation of being subservient. The idea of a wife having to obey and submit are repugnant to so many because they want equality with their partner.  Today people do not want to submit or obey the Lord, they would rather be equal with Him. So many believe that Jesus came to bring us this equality and not to bring us into any sort of submitting or obedience. The mere words- submit to authority riles up so many who believe they should not have to submit to anyone. It brings up the idea of slaves and masters and no one wants to be the slave, only the master.

We are told to submit ourselves to God.
Yield ourselves to God's authority.

Do we truly do this? Do we? Do you yield yourself to God's authority? Do you place yourself in submission to God. Seriously.

To do this we must believe our God is REAL. We've talked a lot about Satan being real but not we have to bring this up because it's easy to say we believe and yet only in an abstract way. We can say we yield and yet is it a REAL yielding? What exactly are we yielding? If we are only mouthing the words without any real meaning behind them, then what good is that? I can say I yield to the Queen of England, and that's all well and good, she's in England while I'm here in the USA and so what good would my yielding do? None. I don't even live in the queen's country. I have nothing to do with the queen of England and I never will. 

When we say we are submitting our selves to someone it has to be a real submission, not just words without substance.

So again the question, What are we yielding to God when we submit to His authority? What makes it real, not just words?

1Sa 3:18  And Samuel told him every whit, and hid nothing from him. And he said, It is the LORD: let him do what seemeth him good.

Samuel told Eli everything God had told him and hid nothing. Eli replied- 

It is the LORD-  let Him do what seems  good to Him.

Let the LORD do what He will- IN OUR LIVES.

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2Sa 15:26  But if he thus say, I have no delight in thee; behold, here am I, let him do to me as seemeth good unto him.

David wanted God's favor and here he is submitting to God's will.

That even if God said He had NO delight in David at all, David was willing that God do with Him whatever it was He wanted.  David was submitting all of himself to God, every bit.

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2Ch 30:8  Now be ye not stiffnecked, as your fathers were, but yield yourselves unto the LORD, and enter into his sanctuary, which he hath sanctified for ever: and serve the LORD your God, that the fierceness of his wrath may turn away from you.

Serve the LORD our GOD.

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2Ch 33:12  And when he was in affliction, he besought the LORD his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers,
2Ch 33:13  And prayed unto him: and he was intreated of him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD he was God.

HUMBLED himself before GOD.
PRAYED to GOD.

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Job 1:21  And said, Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.

TRUTH.

The LORD GAVE- and the LORD takes- all HIS will, not ours.

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Job 42:1  Then Job answered the LORD, and said,
Job 42:2  I know that thou canst do every thing, and that no thought can be withholden from thee.
Job 42:3  Who is he that hideth counsel without knowledge? therefore have I uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not.
Job 42:4  Hear, I beseech thee, and I will speak: I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me.
Job 42:5  I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee.
Job 42:6  Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.

Yielding to God who is all things, as we are nothing.

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Mat 11:29  Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

Take Jesus' YOKE upon us, learn of HIM. He is MEEK and LOWLY in heart-  we need to be the same through submission!

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Rom 10:3  For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.

Submit to the RIGHTEOUSNESS of GOD!

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When we truly submit ourselves to God we are believing with all that we are that God will save us no matter what the devil throws at us. We are giving our LIVES to HIM, choosing HIM over ourselves, over ALL things!

Do you do that?!

Do I do that?!

We should, I should, we need to!

In that submission comes resistance towards the Devil who would have us never yield ourselves to God. The last thing the Devil wants is our submission towards God because he knows when we are submitted to God that he cannot touch our eternal life and that is the thing he wants most from us- our eternal life.

Please LORD, help us to submit! Help us to learn submission, full submission to YOU.

All by YOUR GRACE and YOUR MERCY, through YOUR LOVE and YOUR RIGHTEOUSNESS!

AMEN!

Think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you

The attacks of Satan are hideous!
Do we recognize them for what they are?

Just today I was talking to someone who was telling me about a few problems they were having and I told them, that's Satan, it's not you. And again a short bit later I told them, that's Satan, not that person who is bothering you. Satan USES us and he USES others we HAVE to recognize the SOURCE. We have to recognize the true power of Satan because only then can we really love others and in loving them, forgive them.  We can seek forgiveness from God for our sins and then we need to forgive ourselves but we can only do that if we believe we are lovable and we can't be lovable if we believe we are the source of sin.  Yes, we choose to sin, but we have a tempter! No, we can't use the tempter as an excuse to sin. The devil made me do it, doesn't cut it, not in reality. Eve used that excuse and she did not escape the guilt or the sin of her actions.  While we cannot use the tempter as an excuse we can recognize that the source of our own sin stems from him and no other. He wants us to sin. He loves when we sin. He is real.

The sweet old lady who  pulled out in front of you as you were driving down the road causing you to slam on your brakes and spill your coffee, could she have been used by Satan? You don't want to think so, we never want to believe that sweet people can be influenced by something evil. I'm not saying that sweet old lady is Satan, or a Devil worshipper, or even deliberately allowing herself to be used by the evil one.  But Satan who can transform himself into an angel of light, who can cause his evil fallen angel followers to possess human beings and cause all manner of illnesses, this POWERFUL being can surely cause an old lady to become distracted for a moment and that moment is all it would take for her to pull out in front of you.

Things happen and Satan is truly behind all the evil in some way, shape, or form. 

How could we truly love someone who has hurt us to our very core if we believe their evil towards us comes from some inner evil they possess all on their own?  How could our God love us in our own sins if we were not influenced, but evil of our own accord? Do you think Satan will be forgiven? He won't. He made his choice to introduce evil and yes, it was his choice it wasn't forced upon him. He not only made the choice to introduce sin, he encouraged many others of his kind, angels, to sin along with him.

Satan will be completely and utterly destroyed after his punishment is fulfilled and God alone knows the severity of that punishment.

Rev 20:10  And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.

Satan cannot be forgiven, he had his chance, he made his choice just like EVERYONE Of us will make our CHOICE for or against LOVE, and that LOVE is GOD, and against LOVE is Satan.

Satan's sole purpose is to get as many of us human beings to follow him as possible and in anyway possible.

Yesterday I was immersed in a vat of boiling Satan fire, and praise be to God that He in His wisdom is using that fire to purify me! Is it pleasant? NO.  But the prayers and love that have been directed to God on my behalf have done wonders as only they can.

Please LORD help me, help us, guide us, open our eyes and our hearts to all we need to know in YOU.

1Pe_4:12  Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you

This is so true, we are to go through many, many fiery trails and we can't think that it's a strange thing, but rather an opportunity all by the grace of God to teach us, to refine us.

Our study lately has been and will be for as long as is necessary on the following...

Jas 4:7  Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Jas 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.
Jas 4:9  Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.
Jas 4:10  Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.
Jas 4:11  Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge.
Jas 4:12  There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?

Praise you LORD for helping me, for working in me to humble me, for me to humble myself in the sight of YOU LORD, and PRAISE to YOUR NAME for LIFTING ME UP!

I love you LORD, I love you so much!

All Glory to God!

What is your life? It is even a vapor...

Jas 4:14  Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.
I've been talking a lot about Satan recently, about how real he is and how we have to resist him, and you  know what? Satan doesn't like that kind of talk.
Talk about attacks. I really didn't expect to be attacked viciously but he knows us, Satan knows us inside and out, he knows our weaknesses, he know the things that bother us the most, he knows how to manipulate us expertly. You think he doesn't? The next time you have a really, really bad day try to pick it apart a little and see why it turned out that way. What were the circumstances that created that bad day? Were they seemingly random? Were they perhaps orchestrated somehow? You know the awful thing, Satan loves to use seemingly innocent things to attack us so we don't attribute it to him at all.
The thing is, God will take the attacks Satan enacts and use them to teach us, to chastise us, to put us in a fire to purify us. When we are being fiercely attacked it's like we are being dropped into a vat under which is the hottest fire is burning wildly. Instantly we begin to melt and the impurities in us begin to separate from what is pure.  Burning. If you've ever been burned you know how it feels. If you've accidentally touched something that was a bit too hot you instantly pull your hand back, right? Depending upon the temperature of what you touched the severity will vary. Extremely hot and all it takes is a few second touch to burn your hand very badly, just slightly hot and you might get a red stinging mark for a bit. When we are in the fire being tried it feels AWFUL! It's is PAINFUL in a whole different way. Depending upon what impurities are being pulled out, the temperature will again, vary.
If Satan attacks and your whole world seems to have been rocked and nothing feels right or good in anyway, if your entire existence is twisted and turned until you feel completely out of sorts, it's a good bet you are in a really, really hot vat, that fire is burning wildly.
The thing is, the attack put you on the defensive as it brings out the worse in you. All the impurities are rising to the top and boiling out and you can't stop them. Suddenly you see yourself in a whole new light and yet because this is a huge trial, it's not something you want to see. You want to somehow excuse your behavior away, you want to somehow be right, to become vindicated for what you are going through. To have to admit you might be wrong, that this awful thing in you is against all you want to stand for in Christ, isn't easy.
Truthfully, I still don't want to admit it.
I want to rail and fight, I want to be understood, to be justified. I want to accuse and be given a sympathetic ear. What is happening isn't right. And NO some of it is just downright WRONG but we are supposed to put up with being despised, put out, ignored, regulated to last place, abused.  We are supposed to allow those who would wound us to do so and turn the other cheek so they can wound that one too.  Right?
As you can tell my attack is ongoing, I'm in the middle of it right now and it's so incredibly hard to even write this because I feel so conflicted.
I recognize the attack and yet it's so hard to yield to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. Recognizing the impurities in yourself is NEVER easy, never.
This verse popped out at me as I started this study tonight-
Jas 4:14  Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.
Our lives are so fleeting, we do not know what tomorrow will bring. We do not even know if we will be here tomorrow. Yet people make plans to do things that are weeks away, we have to plan, right? Yet in all reality our lives are fleeting. And sometimes our plans come to pass, other times they don't.  Our lives are but a vapor that exists for such a short period in the grand scheme of things. We need to comprehend this more fully, I NEED TO. 
God please help me, I'm so conflicted, help me deal with what is going on in my life right now. Please help me to accept the chastising, to understand the burning flame is only there to work out the impurities in me of which there are so incredibly many.
Help me.  In YOUR LOVE! By YOUR GRACE! Please Lord by YOUR MERCY.

Resist the Devil

Any Star Trek fans out there might remember this…

"Resistance is futile."  The alien entity, the Borg, wanted to take over all humanity converting them into Borgs. When they met with an enemy they would tell them that resistance was futile, to give up, that resisting would only prolong their suffering, inevitably they would be assimilated.  The story however was that resisting was necessary, if they didn't resist then they definitely would be assimilated if they did resist they had a fighting chance.

Truthfully we MUST resist the Devil.  He's NO science fictional Borg character, but a REALITY in all our lives. The Devil is our enemy and he wants to assimilate us, and no, he doesn't want us to resist.

In fact he doesn't even want us to believe that he is real at all.

Because he works from a spiritual realm it's easy for him to get away with deceiving people into believing he doesn't exist.

People don't really even want to admit there is a spiritual realm. This is all there is, they'll tell you. What you can see, touch, hear, taste, and smell,  that's it, end of story.

Let me ask you a question- if it's a completely windless environment can you feel the air? Can you taste the air? Can you see the air? Can you smell the air? Can you hear the air? Yet take that air away that you cannot taste, see, smell, touch, or hear and what would happen to you? You'd die from something you know exists but cannot truly hold, see, smell, taste, or hear. But, you  say, you can feel the air  and all the other things that it's not like the spiritual at all, but it is. The spiritual realm exists and we are called to have FAITH, to believe without seeing. Not good enough? You have to see to believe, well, that's your prerogative as well as everyone else's. We all have to make the choice to have faith or not. But you can't tell me that faith itself doesn't exist. You can equate faith with the people you know. Do you have to have faith in others? You have faith that the people providing your home electricity will keep doing so, don't you? You have faith that fresh food will turn up at your grocery stores, that's why you go there time and time again. You say that you have proof of those things, but the truth is, if you didn't have the faith in those things you wouldn't expect them, would you? If your electricity only came sporadically at best you'd not have faith in it, you couldn't trust that it would be there. If you went to the store and only once in a while found fresh food there, would you trust that there would be fresh food there? No. You have faith in things. You have faith in people until they betray that faith, and then sometimes you can come to have faith in them again, but sometimes you can't.  If a person constantly lets you down do you have faith in them, no.  But you know what it means to have faith in someone, in something's. In the ideal world we could have tremendous faith, but this isn't the ideal world so when we place our faith in things of this world we are often let down.  Having faith in God, in HIS truth, in HIS love is something that can NEVER let you down.

People say God lets them down all the time, but that's not true. God promises us salvation through our Savior and a new world with that salvation. God does NOT promise us good health, happiness, money, here and now.  We are told to trust that He will take care of us, and HE will, He will take care of our eternal life if we place all our faith in Him.  We cannot get all caught up in this world, that's what Satan wants us to do. He wants our focus on the here and now, not things eternal. If he can get us blaming God, or not believing in God based on our life here and now then he's won the victory over your eternal life, and you've made his job incredibly easy. If you don't believe in him, all the better because you HAVE to believe in Him if you believe in Jesus Christ. Jesus came and died for us and His Father brought Him back to life for us, all to get victory over Satan and the sin he ushered into existence.

He's REAL. Satan is as real as Jesus Christ and we are told to RESIST Satan even as we are to SUBMIT to God.

Read this--

Jas 4:1  From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?
Jas 4:2  Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.
Jas 4:3  Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.
Jas 4:4  Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
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.

Jas 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.
Jas 4:9  Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.
Jas 4:10  Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.
Jas 4:11  Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge.
Jas 4:12  There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?
Jas 4:13  Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain:
Jas 4:14  Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.
Jas 4:15  For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.
Jas 4:16  But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil.
Jas 4:17  Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.

Sobering words, yes? Words we need to study and take to heart!

By the grace and mercy of God, more tomorrow!