Read with Me
James 4:7-10 (HCSB)
Therefore, submit to God. But resist the Devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, sinners, and purify your hearts, double-minded people! Be miserable and mourn and weep. Your laughter must change to mourning and your joy to sorrow. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you.
Listen with Me
In reading this section, we need to remember that James is speaking specifically to the carnal Christians in the Church, those who have harsh tongues and who covet and quarrel, and whose hearts have been pierced by his earlier condemnation. What are they to do? What is the solution to the heart issues that have been made evident to them?
James’ solution includes actions as well as checks on attitudes. First and foremost, they must submit themselves to God. This includes not just obedience to God’s commands, although unquestionably does include that. It also includes a total commitment or recommitment of the whole person to God’s service and His will. Any area of a person’s life that is not completely submitted to God will become a spiritual stronghold that the enemy can use to operate in that person’s life to undermine their commitment to God and their effectiveness in the work of the kingdom.
Which leads to the next point, which is active resistance to the devil. The hopeful thing is that if the devil is resisted, he must flee. There never was a fair fight between Jesus or His followers and the devil and his demons. Whenever Jesus or those indwelt by the Holy Spirit showed up, there was no pitched battle or anything that could be described as warfare. Instead, the demons were instantly reduced to quivering piles of jelly, begging for their very existence, and departing at a single command. The only two times that there was any kind of a battle, and any kind of a failure, was when the prayerless disciples failed to dislodge an unclean spirit (Matthew 17:14-21), and when the seven sons of Sceva, unbelieving Ephesian Jews, tried to use the name of Jesus as a magic incantation in an exorcism (Acts 19:13-16). But after Pentecost, believers in Jesus’ caused the devil and his demons to flee by simply resisting and commanding them to go.
Next, after repenting and submitting themselves, those believers must consciously draw near to God through worship, thanksgiving, and prayer. Only then would God’s power be able to flow through them and work in them.
The rest of these instructions are all encouragements to truly turn away from their former self-focused lives, there compromises, and their sins. They must truly repent, not merely by being sorrowful, but by changing the direction of their lives, symbolized by washing their hands of the filth of sinful actions and attitudes, and by purifying their hearts through recommitting and rededicating themselves to God and His agenda. Only then will there be they be in a place from which God can lift them up and restore them. And He will.
Pray with Me
Father, I have heard many sermons which talk about how simple it is to be saved: all it requires is to say yes to Jesus. But without the conviction of past sinful choices, without true repentance and real commitment to You and Your agenda, there really is no new life, no power, no true salvation. Help us to not make the way to You more complicated than it needs to be by loading it down with man-made rules and requirements. But help us at the same time to not make it simpler than it truly must be, doing away with the repentance that must be there alongside belief in Jesus, and allowing people to believe that they can simply continue right on with their old lives, and they’ll be fine. Help us to do this, as we do all things, Your way. Amen.