Humble Ourselves.... in His Word 6-23-2025

 

Humble Ourselves …In His Word 6-23-2025 



Chapter 4 of James teaches us about humbling ourselves before God. This is what we commonly refer to drawing near to Him, but it is  something we cannot do with pride!

We first have to accept that He is Lord God Almighty! He is more powerful, more wise, more loving, more kind, more anything that we can think of!

If that does not humble us what will?

It also talks about the root or heart of the matter when it comes to strife and quarrels. God wants us to figure out why we fight with one another and then remove that situation. In many cases the reason is weakness in the fight against good and evil in our own lives, but other times pride is involved.

 What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Don’t they come from the evil desires at war within you?  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. James 4:1-3

Too often we get caught up the cares of the world, how we think we should look, or behave as those around us in the world. We worry if they worry, we forget who is in charge and try to be ‘Christlike-sorta’. Instead, we need to be all in! To be all in we need to look at the Word of God and start living the way He wants us to live. James puts it this way, below. We cannot be a friend to the world and God both. We become an enemy to God, or against the world. But so may things make us think we should do what the world says. Even in our churches today we lean towards the world in the thought that if we do this we will attract new believers. If we look fun, if we look fancy, if we look good…

As if ‘we’ attract the ones who become believers, we need to realize it is the Holy Spirit, not our great writing or preaching that brings the people in. It is the Holy Spirit speaking to our hearts and minds that draws us nearer to God. The obedience that comes after that nudge of the Lord speaking to our heart through His Word is what crushes our human pride and helps us humble befor His Word, His way, His direction and His desire for our lives.

 

You adulterers! Don’t you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God? I say it again: If you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God. Do you think the Scriptures have no meaning? They say that God is passionate that the spirit he has placed within us should be faithful to him. And he gives grace generously. As the Scriptures say,

“God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

 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.  Let there be tears for what you have done. Let there be sorrow and deep grief. Let there be sadness instead of laughter and gloom instead of joy.  Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up in honor. James 4:4-10

God opposes the proud, those who count themselves as the ones who are in charge of their lives, but when we realize He is the One who guides us, then we can truly come humbly before Him, resisting the devil and watching him flee from us. We need to wash our spiritual hands, get ride of the dirt that draws us into the world.

What is that dirt? It could be unconfessed sin, it could be the inappropriate words that come out of our mouths, or it could be a lifestyle we know we should not be in, as believers. Whatever it is we need to wash it away.

Think for of it like this a moment, to wash your hands you use soap- the Word is our soap. We use water- the Holy Spirit is the water that washes away our sins by the blood of Jesus! He cleanses our hearts and minds, and we keep it that way by reading the Word daily. That refreshes the cleaning, the washing away and bringing us sparkling new again each morning is the greatest way to start the day! When we slather on the Word of God our minds get so clean and that sweet smelling savor will easily drift up to the Lord.

Still what about the rest of the day? What do we do when the people push all our buttons? First, heed the warning below from James!

 Don’t speak evil against each other, dear brothers and sisters. If you criticize and judge each other, then you are criticizing and judging God’s law. But your job is to obey the law, not to judge whether it applies to you.  God alone, who gave the law, is the Judge. He alone has the power to save or to destroy. So, what right do you have to judge your neighbor? James 4:9-12

Speak the truth in love, when possible. When its not possible then stay quiet when you can. If the button gets pushed, apologize and get back in the Word to regain direction from the Lord, and pray for God to help us out!  It’s not about us! It’s about living right before Him.  Then as you get in the swing of doing this, you may feel pretty proud of yourself and think you can handle it. Maybe you don’t really need to pray, and read the Bible every day, or in the heat of the battle?  You’ve got this right?

Nope! That is when we have a new battle. A battle against flesh in ourselves. When we think we have got it all by ourselves, that’s when we need the Lord all the more!

 Look here, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do business there and make a profit.”  How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone.  What you ought to say is, “If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.”  Otherwise, you are boasting about your own pretentious plans, and all such boasting is evil. Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it. James 4:13-17v

We’ve got this, only because He’s got us! When we are in His plan, His Word, prayer with Him and worship Him throughout our days, then we can truly say that

“I’ve got this, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!” is a great quote to use when you start to falter. We all falter, none of us is perfect. When I was a young Christian a wise man once told me in regard to the Word of God and His life for us, “The more you know the more you know that you do not know.”

Still as long as we are walking in the Word, we will walk in prayer and thus the Holy Spirit will be our guide. So get in the Word! Read it, apply it, live it!

Read James 4 again and think on these things, just because it is what I got from it does not  mean its exactly everything God wants you to get from it! Read the Chapter! Write it down if it helps, or write what you see that you can apply to your life, and then go live it! Ask Him to help you! For you can do all things through Christ!

In His Word, 

Teresa Wilson

://www.youtube.com/shorts/okZI5rpvBPA?feature=share