WHO ARE WE SUBMITTED TOO
Wednesday – March 11, 2026
Video link: https://youtu.be/YUHcm-mZpnk
Greetings one and all! Welcome to our ongoing Bible Study of the Bible Book of James. You will recall that this book was written by James the Just a child of Joseph and Mary who grew up in the same household with Jesus. He would not denounce Jesus as the Messiah and died a martyrs death. I will be focusing on the 8th verse of our primary text today.
James 4:6-10 (KJV)
6 But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.
7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
8 Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.
9 Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.
10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.
Are we part of the proud or part of the humble. Are we teachable and correctable? Grace is Gods’ Power influence exercised on our behalf, often referred to as the favor of God. Our text then goes on to further describe a humble person. Being humble is being submitted to God and resisting the devil. Resisting the devil means we do not allow his voice, fall for his deceptions. How do we do that? Well, we need to have our nose in the Book, the Scripture so we can discern good and evil. I suspect that most if not all Christians would testify that they are submitted to God but is there fruit of their or our submission?
As we consider the 8th verse of our primary text, we get a little more insight into what submission to God looks like. I know we talked about this already, but it seems to me worth considering again. What does it mean to draw nigh (near) to God? We are told that if we draw near to Him, He will draw near to us. In today’s vernacular we might say that we are close with or to this one or that one. What does being near or close mean. To be clear it is not talking about proximity, a physical distance between. It has to do with thinking alike, talking alike, and doing alike being in harmony one with the other. In the case of God, we walk in absolute harmony with Him authorizing Him to flow in and through us for Kingdom purposes and to fulfill Covenant with each other (God and us). As we become more and more like Him, the greater harmony, and we start looking more and more like Him, then people see Him upon the earth through us.
John 14:9 (KJV)
9 Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?
Can we say the same thing as Jesus to those around us? If not, why not? Now don’t be responding in that high whiny voice “But that was Jesus”. Continuing in verse eight we are told to cleanse our hands. This has to do with making all the things, the doings, of our lives clean and pure Scripturally before the Lord. In other words, are we conducting our lives, using the resources of our lives in a way pleasing to the Lord. Then we are told to purify our hearts, which is to purify our thought lives. Whoa this is a big one. The Lord, through James, then goes on to tell us that an impure heart, thought life, is being double minded. He addressed this earlier in the book.
James 1:6-8 (KJV)
6 But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.
7 For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.
8 A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.
Let us strive to not be double minded but to have the mind of Christ. Perhaps as we examine ourselves this explains why we have not the promises of God in our lives.
TAKE HOME:
- Let’s examine ourselves as to whether we are humble or proud. Are we teachable, correctable, and recognize in submission to those with righteous authority.
- Each of us must ask ourselves if we are becoming more like Him, staying the same, or becoming more like the world with ways of our old father, Satan.
- Are we double minded with impure thoughts? If so we will receive nothing from the Lord.
Lord willing, I will resume right here tomorrow. Remember, we love you, the Lord loves you, and there is nothing you can do about either one.
By: Dr. David R. Wood, Bible Teacher, and Prophetic Voice
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