James 4:7-10
7Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
If you didn't read yesterdays post, you will probably want to before reading this one.
In verse 6 God says that He gives grace to the humble, now He says that we should submit to Him. Too often as Christians we skip to the second part of verse 7, the resist the devil part, and we forget the submit part. God wants to use us to beat back the enemy. He wants to use us as a mighty army to push the devil back, but He's more interested in what happens to us than what He can get out of us, and if we won't submit to Him we'll never see Him move.
The rest of this passage is a picture of repentance, but have you ever been sorry like THAT for your sin? I remember a couple of times being in the move of God and feeling Him push on me, and crying out. Have you ever experienced sorrow like that for your sin? I fear that we've made it to easy for people to get saved. We've reduced it to this little formula, say a prayer and you're done. I think that's a good start, but if you've never made it to this next step, then you've never experienced the true freedom that God has for us.
-Jeff-
Heather said:
It is definitely a strong feeling when God really convicts you - when you catch a glimpse of how unworthy we all are in the presence of the Holy of Holies.
As much as we all want to do our part in the fight - none of what we do means anything unless it is God's will, unless we really submit to Him. But when we do! Oh the great things God will do!