If you had an enemy who was always attacking you, bullying you, and making your life miserable, and then was told of a way to be free from your enemy and their attacks, wouldn’t you listen and follow what they said? As believers, we have an enemy, one who is out to totally destroy us. In our Scripture today we are given one clear and concise answer for this battle, along with other valuable instructions and help for our Christian life. Let’s see what James has to teach us.
As most of us know, the fierce enemy in our Christian life is Satan, the devil. His attacks against us are relentless, and can quickly bring us down if we do not use what we have available to counteract those attacks. Our Scripture opens with James telling us from God’s Word that we need to both submit to God and to resist the devil. When we do that, he will flee from us (vs. 7). The word “resist” from the original Greek means to withstand, to oppose. When we resist someone, we don’t let them get the advantage over us. When Satan knows that someone is a spiritually weak Christian, he knows that he and his demon hordes have the advantage, and they are an easy target. When we submit to God, He promises us that the devil will flee.
Satan is a powerful enemy, that is for sure, and many Christians want to just back away and be the one to flee. We need to remember that Satan is a defeated adversary. He was defeated by the Lord Jesus Christ through His sacrificial death at Calvary. While he is a powerful foe, those who are protected by salvation, and through prayer and the Word of God, need not be paralyzed in fear at this roaring lion (I Peter 5:8-9). We are kept by the power of God (I Peter 1:5). No evil can penetrate the armor of God when we put it on (Ephesians 6:10-18).
Satan dangles temptations right in front of us. But his power stops there. He can’t force us to succumb to temptation. When we are warned by the Holy Spirit, and decide to say no to the temptations, Satan can do no more. He runs away. We need to be careful, though, when old sins resurface in our lives. We cannot allow them back in. We must submit to God, resisting, withstanding, and opposing the devil. We have a Savior who doesn’t treat us as our sins deserve, but grants us grace and power for a new start of service for Him.
We are to imitate Jesus in resisting temptation, which requires submission to God’s will, and is the key to staying on God’s side and not the devil’s. Submission means obedience, which in turn means resisting the devil and his temptations. Resisting the devil will move us in the direction of drawing nearer to God, and reciprocates the move towards a closer relationship with Him. This requires confession and repentance. The mourning in verse 9 is grief over our sins. The laughter and joy in those verses would be showing a casual attitude towards sin. When we humble ourselves before God, He is faithful to lift us up, forgive us, and restore our relationship with Him (vs. 10). We become better people by humbly admitting our sins, asking for God’s help, and being honest about our weaknesses.
Our Scripture passage closes with James instructing us to put our whole life, all of our plans and dreams, into the hands of the Lord (vs. 13-16). Mature faith makes plans but remains in a posture of humility and submission to the sovereignty of God. We are not in control of the variables. When we assume that our plans will dictate future events, we ignore the fact that it is God who rules over everything. Planning is necessary in life, but the sin of presumption is the assumption that we are in control. Life here on earth can end in a split second. We don’t know the day or the hour when the Lord will return, nor when our life on earth will end. The day will come when each of us will have to leave this life. All that will matter is whether we have been prepared by believing in Jesus, and by serving Him here on earth.
The events of our lives may be uncertain, but one thing is sure - through all of life’s unexpected moments, our God will never leave us. He is our one constant throughout life.
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