James 4:7-10 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. (8) Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. (9) Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. (10) Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

There are two things that are challenging for the human heart… submission and humility. As a believer in Christ, we are called to both. James says that when we submit to God and resist the devil, he will flee from you. He then goes on to say that when we humble ourselves before the Lord, He will exalt you.

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Paul tells us in 1Corinthians that we were bought with a price. While we were in our sin, rebelling against God, He paid the price for our redemption. The Christian walk is not about living in our old wrathful, arrogant, self-absorbed way. It is recognizing the price paid for us to become children of God and submitting to the one who paid it. The Lord is supreme over our lives and it is because of Him we live, we move, and we have our being.

When we submit to God and resist the devil, we are identifying with the death and resurrection of Christ in our lives. Fleeing the devil means that we flee from the things of the world that keep us from God. There are two kinds of people; children of God and children of the devil. That doesn’t mean that if you aren’t a believer you are a Satanist, it simply means that you can not serve two masters. You are either influenced by the Lord or influenced by the devil. It is that simple.

When we try to live a worldly life, chasing after possessions, wealth, fame, etc, and say we are a Christian, we are double minded. James tells us to mourn and weep. Our joy should be turned to gloom and our laughter to mourning when we consider our condition before God. We are His children and when we look like the unbelievers it should cause us great weeping and mourning over the condition of our heart. He paid the highest price for you and me on the cross and when we respond to the Gospel, call ourselves Christian, and then run right back to our old ways, that should cause us much grief and sorrow.

When we humble ourselves before the Lord, he will exalt us. To humble ourselves we need to repent in faith from our old way of thinking and our old way of living. It means that we take the place of servant and not of master in our life. We submit to the Lord and realize that we are his child. But in so doing there is great reward. James says that he will exalt you! He will take the wretched sinner and make him clean again. He will turn your mourning into dancing and your weeping into joy. God will turn the unworthy rebel into the redeemed saint who receives the reward of eternity with Him.

Prayer

Lord, help me to humble myself before you today. I have been going way to long on my own and I want you to be the Lord of my life. Draw me close to you and give me the strength to follow after you with all of my heart, soul, and mind. Amen