I thought I’d write about something that has impacted my life recently. While reading different books within the bible I came across James chapter 4. Although I’ve previously read it opened my eyes massively. After researching in to it I felt compelled to share it.
Four verses really stood out, verses 7-10.
7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
It’s amazing how in 56 words there’s 10 commands of how to get closer to God if we need rescuing and understanding who God is. The commands are: submit, resist, come near, wash, purify, grieve, mourn, wail, change, humble yourselves. By taking out the command words out it leaves 44 words. So, on average 4.4 words per command. Short, sweet and direct. Its amazing how punchy these commands are. I found that this isn’t the first time a communication is short, sweet and to the point. When Mary and Martha sent a note to Jesus about Lazarus, it simply said, ‘Lord the one you love is sick’ (John 11:3). Just seven words to tell Jesus that someone was ill.
It seems on reflection that some of the
commands are weird and unusual, but digging deeper into them actually shows
the opposite.
Submit, I found for ages I
couldn’t get to grips with this word. To most people it means to give up or
give in. To lose. However, researching recently I found it’s more about finding
your position, such as when a new recruit joins the army, he submits to his role
and knows where he stands and what officers are above him. It’s the same within
Ephesians (5:21-33), wives submitting to their
husbands and husbands submitting to the church.
Resist, quite simple really to understand
but sometimes hard to control the urges from the devil. As we live with free
will all round us and we get easily influenced by others resisting is sometimes
one of the hardest to do. When resisting we should remember our shield of faith
(Ephesians 6:16), Knowing that we have faith will help us to resist the devil.
Come near, sounds easy to do however,
responses from God vary and sometimes we have to change to hear them. If we’re
drawing closer to God are, we walking the walk and talking the talk? Elijah
found that God doesn’t always come in the busy loud times and events, but
sometimes we have to step back to here him in the quiet times (1 Kings 19
11-13).
Wash, wash away your sins, we’re baptised in
the holy waters and been given Gods grace. Keep the body guarded from the devil.
The more that we sin the more we have to clean our hands, all sin is dirty but
we have Gods’ grace.
Purify, our hearts should only be on God, no
one or anything else should come between that. Why should we doubt Gods’
amazing and generous grace when we doubt him? Our rewards will be so much
better if we just believe in him and trust him. Jesus blessed those who hadn’t seen
his raise from the dead but believed that he had (John 20 29).
Grieve, mourn and wail all fit in to one package.
Do we hurt when we sin? Do we feel sad after we’ve sinned? When we repent do,
we beg God for forgiveness and actually feel forgiven or do we just brush it
off? We should open our hearts when we repent, if we don’t then we won’t be
forgiven, confess your sins and let God show his mercy and grace.
Change,
if we’re happy sinning would we be happier living in Gods’ glory and getting our
true pleasure in heaven? We should be changing from our sinful nature to living
for God. If we can live for God and leave our sin behind, then we’ll have
changed our hearts and be transferred our hearts view to him, but it isn’t
easy. Sometimes it takes time, like a caterpillar evolving into a butterfly there's no quick fix.
Humble
yourselves, don’t compare yourselves to other, keep yourself submitted to God.
Look at what God expects of us. Why should we compare ourselves to others when
its not our job to judge others? Be humble and think what your live would be
like without God.
The whole chapter really impacted my life recently. I'd suggest reading the rest of chapter 4 and try and follow the ten commandments of James.
(All quotes from NIV translation).
