SUBMIT YOURSELF TO GOD

SUBMIT yourself to God...DRAW near unto God....HUMBLE yourself before the mighty hand of God...

(James 4:7-10)

Wow! Three different 'commands' for each believer in a short passage, each designed to take us from one level to the next in God!  All three commands are within our capacity to fulfil otherwise God would not have told us to do them. So there is no point praying that God should do those things for us - in fact, asking God to humble us, for instance, is asking for a different thing entirely which might not be pleasant.  Let us briefly examine each one of the commands.

1. SUBMIT yourself to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you (vs 7) - This is showing us that effectively exercising the authority of the Kingdom of God is dependent on us being aligned with the King by submitting ourselves to Him.  The devil is defeated (Col 2:15) and has been put under our feet (Luke 10:19) but he is an outlaw and is still looking for whom he will devour hence the need to resist him (1Peter 5:8); he knows who is not submitted as well - ask the 7 sons of Sceva (Acts 19:14-16)!  As children of the Most High King, we are called to live a life of resistance against the enemy so he knows he can not encroach on our territory.  This is exercising our Kingly mandate of dominion (Gen 1:26-27 & Rev 5:10).  Submitting ourselves to God involves being totally surrendered to the will of the father in all areas of our lives; it includes making Him and His word the final authority in our lives.  It means being true 'sheep' and not 'goats'!  It means always saying 'yes' to His will with no 'buts'

2. DRAW near unto God and He will draw near unto you (vs 8) - This is showing us that we have the opportunity to determine how intimate we want to be witht he Lord and the responsibility to make it happen!  How closely do you want to walk with the Lord? Do you want to worship from afar or in close intimacy with the King who indwells you by his Spirit? Jesus is our perfect example, the first begotten from the dead.  He modelled for us how intimate we can be with the Father.  In John 5:19, Jesus declared that He does only what He saw the Father doing and said only what He heard the father saying.  This is indicative of intimacy because you cannot see what someone is doing from afar, you have to be close to them.  Jesus modelled for us how to fulfill this command - early in the morning, He went away by Himself to spend time with the Father and sometimes throughout the night!  Drawing near unto God will require us to invest a lot of our time, treasure & talents. When we seek the Lord with all our hearts, we will find Him (Jer 29:13).  We seek His face and not just His hands - for who He is and not for what He can do for us.  That was the difference between Moses and the children of Israel - Moses sought God for who He is and found Him (Ex 33:18) but the children of Israel sought Him for what He could do for them, hence He revealed His ways to Moses and His deeds to the children of Israel (Ps 103:7).

3. HUMBLE yourself before the mighty hand of God and He will lift you up (vs 10) - This command is profound in the sense that it is our choice to humble ourselves 'before the mighty hand of God'!  This means agreeing with God about everything and not having a contrary opinion, no matter how pious that may look or sound! If God says you are royalty because you are His child (Rev 1:5 & 5:10; 1Peter 2:9), it is not humble to call yourself a 'worm'! If He says you are His righteousness in Christ Jesus (2Cor 5:21), it is not humble to insist that you are a 'sinner'!  The truth is you and I were sinners but now we have been saved - we need to renew our minds to that!  On the other hand, humbling ourselves also involves total reliance and dependence on God, acknowledging Him as our source, our strength and our all in all.  It's being quick to ask for the help of the Holy Spirit (our guide, helper, standby, advocate, etc) in every situation and being careful to give the glory back to God!  That is the way that God lifts us up. He makes His grace (His divine enablement) available to us because we humble ourselves before His mighty hand instead of being proudly self-reliant.  God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble (James 4:6)!

The commands that God gives us show that He is committed to our victory and to our success.  By obeying the commands, we demonstrate that we are also committed to our own victory and success.  

Obeying these commands helps to become more aware of our supernatural connection and to take advantage of it so that nothing is difficult for us (Phil 4:13)