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Devotion May 7th

Friday 7th

James 4:1-12

NIV (vv6-8) – ‘But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but shows favour to the humble.” Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded’.

ESV (vv6-8) – ‘But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.’

‘Resist the devil and he will flee from you’. What a different world this would be today if Adam and Eve back then in the garden of Eden had resisted the devil! But they did not, and the world became a mess.

The Scripture says the ‘the world lies in wickedness’ but thank God that all that the devil has done to kill, to destroy has been overturned by the message of the Cross, and we can know what it is to be restored and brought into a full and proper relationship with God again. But the devil is not a happy bunny, he knows that the Cross has meant that he is a defeated foe, he knows that the day is fast approaching where he will be thrown into the lake of fire and so he is doing all he can to continue to disrupt and to destroy individuals, and he will not stop at those who are still in the kingdom of darkness, determined to hold them captive, he will put all the effort he can to come after those who have been brought by God’s grace into the kingdom of light, the Kingdom of God, and James’ tells us that we need to learn ‘to resist the devil’.

‘The devil is a sly old fox, if I could catch him, I’d put him in a box, lock the door and throw away the key, for all the things he’s done to me.’ These are the words of a song we used to sing when I was growing up in Sunday School, thank God that there is one who has dealt the blow to the devil, and has the key, but we still need to learn to resist him, for he will try every trick in the book to try and to trip us up, lead us astray, hinder our walk with God and as Peter puts it to devour us. ‘Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith . . .’ 1 Peter 5:8–9.

How can we resist the devil? God has given us an armour to help us against the devil, we read of it in Ephesians 6, where we can stand against every attack that he will bring against us, we can resist him by knowing the Word of God, and as Jesus did, speak it out in times of temptation, we can resist him by remaining in close fellowship with other believers. I read this illustration recently, ‘a bundle of sticks cannot be broken, but separated they can easily be snapped’  If we are in regular, constant fellowship with other believers we are in a place of strength, if we isolate ourselves and lack the place of fellowship with others we can easily be snapped, and the devil would love to catch us unaware or on our own as it were to snap us. The previous phrase we covered was ‘submit therefore to God’, and I believe that this is also key to our being able to resist the devil, for in submitting to God we are placing our lives into the hands of the one who is our hiding place, our shield, our protector. Resist the devil, we can also rebuke the devil in the name of Jesus, and we can claim the power of the blood of Jesus, and he will flee, for in the name of Jesus we have the victory.