A reminder for
today
So humble
yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come
close to God, and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners;
purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world. (James
4:7-8)
It is Wednesday and the week is filled with challenges. I
have been tormented by more and more injuries and this is making training very
hard. Work is tough with more challenges and on top of this I am really tired.
So, it is really going quite well (LOL). How are things on your side, my
friend? The enemy is always busy with plans to make us tumble and fall. He will
use anything to make us miserable and to push us to the place where we will give
up. Unfortunately for him, my strength comes from God. Therefore, despite
injuries and regardless of my challenges and weaknesses I will not give up.
James writes here in James 3 one of the most powerful
passages. He is very clear when he says that we must humble ourselves before
God. This means we must become lesser and lesser in our lives and allow God to
become more. He says that we must resist the devil, then he will flee from us.
In resisting the devil, he means that we must resist the world and the
temptations the world has.
I love this in verse 2 and 3: You want what you don't have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are
jealous of what others have, but you can't get it, so you fight and wage war to
take it away from them. Yet you don't have what you want because you don't ask
God for it. And even when you ask, you don't get it because your motives
are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure.
It is so important that we desire only God and what God wants
for us. His plans for us is much higher than our own ideas and needs. Why do we
need all of these worldly things when they are all temporary anyway? What we
need to do is desire what will give us eternity with God. Jesus said that we
must store our treasures in heaven. We must come closer to God and then God
will become closer to us. In this we must be completely loyal and committed to
God so the world will become lesser and lesser and our desires will be more in
line with God. Therefore, let us humble ourselves before the Lord, and He will
lift us up in honour.
Lord, we desire you and you alone. Give us the strength to
resist the devil and commit our hearts to you and you alone. Let our lives be
filled with you only so that we will have the same desires that you desire for
us. Let us follow your voice and focus only on you. Lord, we humble ourselves
before and we give you our hearts. In Jesus name.
Have an awesome day, dear friend of Jesus.
Cheers
