“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. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.” ‭‭James‬ ‭4:6-10‬ ‭(ESV‬‬)

What Is Grace

Grace. It’s a word that freely floats around in Christian language. We say things like, “By the grace of God such and such did or didn’t happen.” or “Good gracious me!” Songs are sung such as, Amazing Grace, Your Grace is Enough, and Grace Like a Wave. We name people Grace. In fact, my youngest daughter’s middle name is Grace. 

Do we really understand what grace is? According to the Blue Letter Bible (BLB) Concordance, grace means: “good will, loving-kindness, favor of the merciful kindness by which God, exerting his holy influence upon souls, turns them to Christ, keeps, strengthens, increases them in Christian faith, knowledge, affection, and kindles them to the exercise of the Christian virtues.” 

So God’s grace is when he has loving-kindness and favor for us. It’s when he shows merciful kindness to us, and exerts his holy influence on our mind, will, and emotions (soul). He will strengthen us and give us more faith and more knowledge of who Jesus is. He will direct us to discover more of his true character by showing us affection. Grace is God drawing us closer to himself. 

How To Get Grace

Grace is given freely by God when we are humble. According to the BLB Concordance, to be humble is “not rising far from the ground.” Of course the opposite of humility is pride. How does the BLB Concordance define pride? “Proud: showing one’s self above others, overtopping, conspicuous above others, pre-eminent with an overweening estimate of one’s means or merits, despising others or even treating them with contempt, haughty.” To be humble does not mean allowing anyone and everyone to walk over us. Rather it is recognizing that we are not God. We don’t have all the answers. We see ourselves through the proper lenses of who God sees when he looks at us. Realizing God does have all the answers. He sees both himself as well as everyone else through proper lenses that only a holy, perfect, and gracious God could see. 

Humbling ourselves before God means seeking him and drawing close to him. Then he will draw close to us and teach us all we need to know for all circumstances life throws our way. 

The Results Of Being Humble

When we humble ourselves before God, he is able to lift us up to the places where we can shine a light and be a reflection of him to everyone around us. We will be like that city on a hill, shining a light to a dark world. When we are humble before the Lord, he makes everything clear. He shows us where we need refining. 

When we are humble toward God, we can clearly see the schemes of the devil. Then we are able to resist him. What happens when we resist the devil? He flees from us. The devil can’t stand for long when he is being resisted. He isn’t really a fighter. He is one who desires to keep us in bondage, but he doesn’t have the strength to stand against the word of God and the power of God.

So how do we resist the devil? By speaking the truth. Remember we have spiritual armor. Part of that armor is the belt of truth and shield of faith. (We talked about how important it is to live a life filled with faith before.) We humble ourselves before God so that he can protect us from the devil, show us where we are thinking incorrectly, and then he will be able to promote and exalt us to do more of his work.

What Will You Do

So I ask you, what areas of your life need to be set straight? Where do you need to humble yourself? How can you resist the devil so he will be forced to flee from you? Where are you seeing things incorrectly? What will you do today to draw closer to God? These are questions I asked myself as I was preparing this lesson. 

A few weeks ago we had a situation come up where Brett and I both needed to stand in faith, resist the devil, and draw close to God. We were faced with the possibility of having our world turned upside down. While some people may have decided to comply with the demands placed on Brett at work, we knew without a shadow of doubt what we were supposed to do. We were not to comply. We were to stand firm in what we know God has already shown us regarding these requests. Brett and I had already drawn close to God in this area and he gave us clear vision for the situation we suddenly found ourselves in. 

I can honestly say we did do those things, even though there were short periods of time when we started questioning our stance. In the end these demands were taken off the table, and we felt the hand of God in the whole situation. We saw first hand how we stood firm in faith, and God’s favor was placed upon Brett at work. The plans of the devil failed. The plans of God prevailed and we were protected.