Skip to main content

Submit...


Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. (James 4:7)

                Uh oh, there’s that terrible word… submit.  Another translation says, “Humble yourselves.” Another nasty word. Why should I grovel in the dirt? I have value! Why should I throw myself on the ground like a welcome mat and let everyone walk all over me? It’s wrong to allow anyone to treat me as if you don’t matter! In fact, a friend shared something yesterday saying that it’s OK to walk away from a relationship in which one doesn’t feel valued. I’ve been in a number of those relationships, and I suspect in most of them, the other person would say that I was the guilty one, that I didn’t value them highly enough. If I weren’t so arrogant…. I suspect that most of us have been on both sides of that equation. 
               But look at the whole verse. First, we’re to submit ourselves to God. He gets to call the shots. He gets to make the rules. He’s the god in the relationship. We’re the creatures, the created beings. This is why we need to humble ourselves to Him. 
                Take it that one step farther. “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” Could this be what the verse is really talking about? We submit ourselves to God as a means of resisting the devil. Think about the serpent in the Garden of Eden. He tempted Eve with the notion of being “like God.” He tempted her to be proud, to not submit to God.
                If we respond to Satan by being proud of the fact that he left when we told him to, he has won. God tells us that victory over Satan isn’t won by beating Satan. It’s won by surrendering to God.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Virgin?

           Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. (Isaiah 7:14)           This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 1:18)           But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”            “How will this be,” Mary asked the...
Post a Comment
Read more

Saved?

  I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” (John 10:28-30) “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ ” (Matthew 7:21-23) Not at all! Let God be true, and every human being a liar. As it is written: “So that you may be proved right when you speak and prevail when you judge.” (Romans 3:4)   What conclusion do you draw when someone who was raised in a Christian family and church, perhaps even playing a significant role in a chur...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more