James 4:7-8 In James 4:7-8 it says "Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double-minded." (I read that from my pocket sized authorized KJV. Man, I like that Bible. It was my dad's when he was a kid and it's got a vinyl cover. Plus it’s the whole Bible in pocket size. Rad huh?)
“Submit yourselves therefore to God”-Now what does it mean to submit yourself? Does that mean to lose all will power? No. God wants us to have a choice. But He wants us to follow Him. To submit to God would be to willfully say, “Yes God, I will follow you.” Not to question but simply to accept that God knows what’s best for you and to do whatever He tells you to do no matter what.
“Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”-Resisting Satan doesn’t seem like it would be very hard to do, but it is. Satan disguises himself so you won’t realize that it’s Satan deceiving you. We as Christians should never let down our guard because Satan is always out there watching and waiting for one little mistake on our part so that he can come in and have a foothold in out lives. But being alert and on the watch for the devil is resisting him. Now what does that verse say? Am I right? Does that say that he will flee from you?? Yep! That’s right! If you are truly resisting the devil then he will flee from you. Great! But that doesn’t mean that if you have resisted the devil and he has flown from you that you can relax and let your guard down cuz Satan is always there waiting for you to fall. But the more you stand up to him and tell him to get out of your life then the easier it will get to resist him and you will get stronger.
“Draw night to God, and He will draw nigh to you.”-Draw nigh to God. Seek after Him. Don’t just go to church on Sundays and Wednesdays and read your Bible whenever you remember. Diligently seek after God. Read your Bible everyday. But don’t just read your Bible, study it. Read through a passage and then think about what it means. Look up other verses that have to do with the same topic. Pray constantly. Really listen to the sermon on Sunday. If you begin doing this and are serious about learning more about God then He will draw near to you. He will help you understand things in scripture (through the Holy Spirit) that you never understood. God will reveal Himself to you. And in turn, the more of God that is revealed to you the more you will want to seek after Him and the more He will draw near to you and so on and so on.
“Cleanse your hands, ye sinners;”-Isn’t that true? Aren’t we all sinners? Oh sure we are made clean under the blood of Jesus but we all still sin. We all compromise in our own ways everyday. I know I do. But what does it mean to cleanse your hands? In my opinion it means to see what you’ve done wrong and to repent. Not just to say, “yeah sure I did something wrong…oh well, I’m only human.” But to truly be sorry and to try your best not to do that thing again. That’s what true repentance is.
“and purify your hearts, ye double-minded.”-To purify your heart, you must remove every evil influence from your life. Now, being a high school student I realize that every bad influence can’t be illuminated (i.e. the writing on the bathroom walls, walking down the hall and hearing all sorts of conversations, etc., etc., etc.) but you can control some of this. Choose your friends carefully. Don’t hang out with people who don’t believe the same as you all the time. But don’t take this to mean that you are not to be friends with people who aren’t Christians because you are so that you can be a witness to them. Just don’t surround yourself with only non-Christians. Watch out for things such as movies and books and music. Make sure they aren’t filling your head with things that are not of God. To quote Philippians 4:8, “…whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things.” That’s pretty self explanatory. So just thing on those things and that will do a great deal to purifying your life. And always remember that God will be there for you no matter what and no matter how other people treat you or what you’re going through. Just call on Him and He will be there.
