Few of us forget the grace of God in the salvation of our souls, but how many of us experience the grace of God in our Christian lives? What does grace in the Christian life look like?
If you are like me, you have no doubt heard James 4:7-8 before many times. "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 . . ." This is an important passage, but even more so including the entire context of the chapter.
Chapter 4 opens calling for Christians to not fight or quarrel because the origin of these actions is from selfish desire and lusts. (v.1-3). He then states that you do not receive the things you want because you either don't pray about it, or when you pray, you are praying according to your desires (v.4) Basically, you bring your conclusions and your will to the Lord and then ask Him to bless your actions. James then calls these Christians "adulterers and adulteresses" because we are violating the purity of our marriage to Christ since the church is the bride of Christ. He reminds us that we are enemies of Christ if we love the things of the world (v. 4)
In v. 6 we find out about grace. " . . . God RESISTETH the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble." When we fight to fulfill selfish desires and our own will, the Holy Spirit is not allowed to inhabit us fully. He's there, but we push Him deep inside. We push, hurt others, and move forward fearlessly in our own power to accomplish what we have set out to do. All the while, we miss out on the grace of our Lord.
Maybe you're like me and haven't fully understood what the grace of the Lord to the Christian is! In AWANA (children's Bible program), I learned that grace is "God giving me a gift I don't deserve" which is correct. Salvation alone is evidence of God's free gift to us. Sometimes, however, we forget about grace once we become Christians. We go on with life as usual never allowing the Holy Spirit to consume us so that we can experience the grace of God. While listening to a sermon a couple of weeks ago, the pastor defined grace as, "God allowing me to be part of the furthering of the gospel."
What does grace look like? He was using the example of Mary when Gabriel came and told her she would have Jesus. In Luke 1, Gabriel says, " . . . Hail thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee; blessed are thou among women. "(v.28) In v. 38, Mary responds, ". . . Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word . . ." Mary was about to face the biggest challenge of her life. She lived in a society that would persecute and exclude her completely for being pregnant outside of marriage. She was engaged to a man that she didn't know for sure would stay with her when she told him about her pregnancy. Imagine her having to tell her parents this news! Mary had no easy road ahead of her and she ended up having Jesus in a barn! I don't know about you, but that just didn't sound like someone that was "highly favoured" to me! The point I missed was that God's grace will include suffering, and grace can be given to any ordinary person that is humbled before God. The point of God's grace is that I can be included in bringing glory to God by furthering His gospel and seeing souls saved and the world changed! As a result of her total commitment to God, Mary was the mother of Jesus Christ our Savior! That is grace!
I don't know about you, but I want to be as close to God as possible to experience this grace! When we think of drawing near to the Lord, some translations use the words come near, but according to my study, a more proper understanding of the meaning of "drawing nigh" is found in Hosea 12: 6 "Therefore turn thou to thy God:keep mercy and judgment, and wait on thy God continually." The waiting on God is what the drawing near is referring to. And isn't it in our time of struggle that we are closest to God? We learn to depend and trust in God alone for our strength. (Zondervan Illustrated Bible Background Commentary) So what are the steps to drawing near to God?
1. Submit yourself to God (v.7) We must follow Him and His will for our lives. He should lead us in our steps- not us bring our will and our ambition to Him for approval.
2. Resist the Devil (v.7) We must realize that we have a sin nature and that God alone has the power to keep us strong in the face of temptation. God has already defeated satan, and the Holy Spirit that has that power lives in us!
3. Cleanse your hands and purify your hearts (v.8)Hands are part of the outward appearance while the heart is part of our inner soul. Our actions must be practically pure- this is always the foundation. What we put in our bodies, what we see with our eyes, how we speak to others, etc. is a manifestation of how pure our hearts are. Beg God to purify your heart and your hands will be cleansed.
4. Be afflicted, mourn, and weep (v.9) We should be genuinely sorrowful over our sin and seek true repentance which includes actions that point in the opposite direction.
5. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord (v.10) This never means to demean yourself. This means that you must realize that your identity and worth comes from your Creator. He is your Lord and Savior and so we must remember our relation to Him as our Lord.
(Partially taken from Life Application Study Bible)
James concludes by reminding us that our words are so important and that none of us has the promise of tomorrow. We are not invincible, and we should not take what we have for granted. James reminds us that our lives are like a "vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. (v.14)" We should live everyday to glorify the Lord because we have no promise of tomorrow. Our lives are so short in relation to eternity, so let's ask God to fill us up and help us to glorify Him and Him alone every day! James concludes by saying, "Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin." (v. 17) Just a reminder here, when God calls us to do something like loving our neighbor, it's not enough to refrain from fighting with them. We must be proactive in showing the love of Christ to our neighbor.
The grace of God is the privilege waiting for us and "great and mighty things which we know not" are the result! Surrender and experience the grace of God on a regular basis!
No comments:
Post a Comment