Jam 4:9 | KingComments | STEP | . To receive the grace of God it is necessary to have the right mind, that of humbleness. You can show that by submitting to God. That is the motive of James’ call. You will always need to be reminded of this call. The point is that you are not in control anymore over the desires of your heart and your whole life, but that you let go of everything and lay everything in God’s hand. Without doubt you will then experience His grace to be living out of that consciousness. Don’t think that you can therefore easily lean back and think that everything will run smoothly for the rest of your life. Absolutely not. You can be sure that the devil comes into action when you allow the Spirit, Who dwells in you, also to work in you. To stop his activities you have to resist him. The devil is all about making you act independently of God again. If you submit yourself to God you will surely be able to resist him. In this way the devil does not encounter a weak person, but the almighty God and this will surely make him run. The Lord Jesus is the perfect example of submission to God. There was nothing that He had to submit Himself to, for His whole life has been full submission to God. That submission led Him into the wilderness. There you see how He resisted the devil, when he approached Him to tempt Him ( ). You learn from the Lord Jesus that you are able to resist the devil by the Word of God. You see the resistance also in the life of Abraham, when the king of Sodom comes to him with his trick ( ). . To be able to resist the devil you need to be in the sanctuary. There you see the greatness and power of God. Therefore you are exhorted to draw near to God. It is indeed important that you draw near in faith ( ). If you do that you experience that God is drawing near to you. He will make you aware that He is defending you against the power of the enemy. To be in the presence of God demands a practice that is in accordance with God’s holiness. Your submission to God must be seen in your deeds. Your hands show that. Your hands show to the people around you what you are doing. It is good to realize that your actions come from your heart. Your heart prompts your hands to act. To be in God’s presence and to experience His protection, your hands are to be clean. That means that you need to remove from your life what does not belong there. You cannot draw near to God while there are things in your life of which you know that God is speaking to you about those things. Rather, it will be that certain evil practices you still maintain deprive you of the desire to draw near to God. Because man is able to draw near to God in a wrong mind ( ), James also points to the mind of the heart. Your heart should be purified from ulterior motives. James already talked about praying in a wrong way, meaning that you can pray with wrong intentions ( ). Now he appeals to you to purify your heart from those wrong intentions. God desires “truth in the innermost being” ( ). You can purify your heart from wrong intentions by praying: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way” ( ). James addresses his readers as “double-minded”. Does he have to address you like that? Literally, a double-minded person means a person with a ‘double soul’. It indicates that a person is limping on two divided opinions when he has to choose between two choices. Then you are tossed to and fro between both choices, while you inwardly know what the good choice is. You find a good illustration of that in the history of Elijah on mount Carmel. Led by Ahab and Jezebel the people find themselves in the realm and power of worshiping idols, while Elijah serves the true God. When Elijah challenges Ahab to a confrontation between God and the idols he called the people and the false prophets on Mount Carmel together. When then the people draw near to Elijah he says: “How long [will] you hesitate between two opinions?” ( ). Have you already made your final choice, or do you still limping between two thoughts? Submit yourself to the authority of James and make a clean sweep with your life if there are things of which you know that they hinder your service for God. As you have read in the first verses of this letter, James writes to the whole of God’s old people, the twelve tribes. Of this people many have not been born again. He tells the people as a whole that they should be miserable and have to weep and mourn. It is a miscalculation that has fatal consequences if a person thinks he shares the blessings of God’s people automatically, simply because of the fact that he is an Israelite by birth. It is a miscalculation of the highest order that you also see in professing Christianity. A lot of people count themselves to be a member of God’s people and claim to be Christians, simply and only because they belong to a church by their baptism or because they have Christian parents. What applies to these people is the word of the Lord Jesus that they are wretched and miserable, blind and naked ( ). . It is crucial that such people realize the tragedy of their situation. He who gets the true picture of the world will surely become aware of his tragedy. The world is a system that functions as a fun fair. There is fun for everyone, but it is a fun fair of death. God will judge that. He who ponders on it just for a moment, must feel the emptiness. As long as a person remains in the world among his so-called friends, he will give the impression that everything is all right. He laughs and drinks together with them as if life is one big party. But at home in his room he finds himself deeply miserable. He is overwhelmed by loneliness. If he could and would only want to take up the courage and be honest about the life he is living, he would then definitely come to the conclusion that he doesn’t want to be part of it any longer. He will certainly come to realize that God must judge that. He also will realize that God will judge him too. After all, his life is a tragedy, full of disgusted deeds. Rightfully, fear of God’s judgment arises. . The moment that he acknowledges that, the path to blessing is set. That path begins with admitting his own hopeless situation without having any possibility to liberate himself from it ( ). Then that will be the end of the laughing with which he fooled himself as if it was all fun. He who learns to see himself in the light of God cannot but weep and mourn. There comes repentance and a desire for forgiveness. The empty fun of the world, the laughing without real happiness changes into weeping and sorrow. In this way the sinner humbles himself before the Lord. Once he comes to that point, he gets the assurance that the Lord will lift him up. It is an exceptional promise for a sorrowful sinner. He will share in the exaltation of the Lord Jesus, Who has freely humbled Himself. God will deal with the sorrowful sinner in the same way He has done to the Lord Jesus – exalt Him –, when the sinner does what the Lord Jesus has done – humbled Himself. The call applies not only to the unconverted sinner but also to those who have been born again. The situation around you gives you absolutely no reason to express joy, but rather to express sadness. For those who have lost the sense to do that, the same exhortation applies as to the sinner who fully lives in such a situation. In the so-called beatitudes the Lord Jesus speaks out a particular ‘blessed’ about those ‘who mourn’ ( ). These are His followers who sense how everything in the world is in rebellion against Him. They share in His feelings about the rebellion of the world and the resistance against everything that is His. In return He wants to give them His joy ( ). That is a joy that has its origin in that other world of which He is the center. You experience this joy if you share with others what you have found in the Lord Jesus ( ). If you live in the world you sometimes share something with others, but you always lose what you share. Everything you share in the world of the Lord Jesus with others, enriches your spiritual life. Whatever you share you will not lose and you will never lose the profit. It can only increase. Now read James 4:7-10 again. Reflection: Which orders (these are not kind requests!) does James give in these verses? Which of them apply to you?