JAMES 4 v 7

This is an important verse for those who believe that we are called to battle. What does it say? “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”

Yes and no. it does say that but it says something before that.

“Submit yourselves, then to God”. Why do we need to do that? Because the previous verse says “God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble.”

What does it mean to submit ourselves to God?

The Greek says it is to subordinate oneself and to obey.

Who are we to obey? The answer is clear. God! Not the pastor. Not the denomination. Not tradition. Not creeds. Not what keeps me comfortable and happy.

Let me ask you a question. Is attending a meeting on Sunday morning to sing a few songs, listen to someone tell you what he thinks about a passage of scripture and going through the ritual of communion, obeying God?

If your answer is yes, I need to know where in scripture he said to do those things. To date, I cannot find it anywhere.

What I do find is that we are to submit ourselves to God. What that means to me is that we do things his way, not ours.

How many churches do you know do things God’s way? I don’t mean meeting every Sunday morning to give the saints a good time so that they will put money in the offering and come back next week.

No, what I mean is churches that do not do anything until they have heard from God what he wants them to do. If they are going to hear from God, they will have to listen as you can’t hear unless you listen.

I read that on average a pastor in the USA spends five minutes a day praying. From that fact, we have to deduce that most churches are not submitting themselves to God. They are in fact, running their own programme to build their…own church, not the one that Jesus is in charge of.

To put it in a warfare context, a soldier is in submission to his commanding officer. He does what he is told when he is told. He doesn’t get up in the morning and say “I have this bright idea of giving candy to the enemy. I am going to town to buy some from the shop.”

You know what his commanding officer will think about this idea and what will happen to the soldier.

Yet that is what we do most of the time. We would rather go and buy some candy than wait until our commanding officer gives us his orders. A soldier wandering out into the enemy camp armed with candy isn’t going to live long.

What we need is God’s weapon of warfare. As Martin Scott says in his book Gaining Ground “Humility is appropriate clothing for warfare. Once we are clothed with it, there is a protection that covers us, and we will be able to progress to places in warfare that would leave us otherwise vulnerable”.

Are you humble enough to submit yourself to God, listen for his instructions and then follow them or is maintaining the status quo too important for you?