Opposed to the Proud [Devotion]

If you haven’t read the book of James recently… do it!

Despite being only 5 chapters long and only boasting a combined total of 108 verses it is an absolute wealth of instruction on the importance and practicality of living out our faith on a daily basis.

But even with its brevity I don’t have time to discuss the whole thing here. Instead, I’d like to examine part of chapter 4, specifically verses 4-10.

“4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5 Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? 6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” 7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.”

Verse 6 repeats a theme found throughout scripture, “God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble.” In fact the Apostle is literally quoting from Proverbs 3:34. This should be a sober warning to us since we cannot afford for God to be opposed to us and are in constant need of his grace.

As a result of our desperate need to be on God’s side, he calls on us to submit ourselves to God (vs 7). While the word submission implies a certain level of humility we often (myself included) miss this in the actual application. We think that if we follow the letter of the law as we see it then we have grounds for a certain level of pride. Especially if we look around and compare ourselves to the world. But the verse doesn’t say that God is opposed the pagan proud but is okay with the “christian” proud. It simply lays out that those who are prideful are in-fact, in opposition to the nature of God.

Think about the contents of Philippians 2:5-8, “5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.“ Jesus Himself, who has every right to all glory, honor, and praise, humbly loved the enemies of God sacrificing Himself that they might be reconciled!

We have no ground for pride and yet we, far too often, struggle desperately with it in one way or another. So James gives us the cure for pride: submission to God. When we submit our opinions of ourselves, our importance, our purpose to God He prunes away “self”. And when god gets rid of “self” then self-righteousness becomes righteousness, self-importance turns into true importance, self-love is lost for the sake of God’s true and undying love that can then pour over out of our lives into the lives of those around us!

But why is it so important for us to drop “self”? Right after saying that God opposes the proud, he follows it up by saying, “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. (vs 7)”. Often this verse about resisting the devil is quoted without its context and so we miss the essential need for humility to do it.

Remember that God is opposed to the proud. That friendship with the world is to be an enemy of God. When we are proud or reveling in this world then we are in direct opposition to God! And that means we’re on Satan’s side… There is no “no man’s land” in this great spiritual war. No spiritual Switzerland. If we are in opposition, facing off with God, then our back is to the enemy… we’re on his side of the line and unprotected against a knife in the back.

He who is proud cannot resist the Devil because pride is the weakness that Satan exploits to our destruction.

So, brothers and sisters, we cannot afford to be proud… we cannot stand against God. But when we stand in humility with God we can stand in strength against the schemes of our enemy! So put on you armor loved ones and stand!