So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come close to God and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world. Let there be tears for what you have done. Let there be sorrow and deep grief. Let there be sadness instead of laughter, and gloom instead of joy. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up in honor.
As I was reading this again, I was struck in a variety of ways.
First, I had to ask myself if I was humble before God. I can think of many instances and situations that my humility before someone would be obvious. I know that when before the Mayor in Mayor's court regarding a traffic mishap, I surely was humble. I respected his position and authority. Do I tremble in a similar way before the Creator of all things? Do I sit in quiet respect knowing that I have done wrong hoping and praying for mercy? Or do I stand bodly, expecting mercy and grace with little sense of reverence? I think we can all guess the answer to that one. Humility is not one of the prime attributes of humanity, is it? When it comes to God, should we not be overwhelmed by His goodness and what He has done for us? Would that simple thought and reflection, take us to our knees? I see I have much more work to do on my attitude and humility!
The end of verse 7 tells us that IF we resist the devil he will flee from us. Can we all be very honest here? I will lay open my sinners mind if you will honestly consider yours. I know that when I consider sinning, there is a moment I can run from any situation. There is a moment when if I feel weak and leaning toward sinning that I can cry out to God for help. I know that if I am in a particular situation that sin is racing through my mind, that I can run and change the location or situation. I also know that most every time - unless I am unconscious - I sit there and let myself be overwhelmed by the REAL lack of a desire to not sin. I may even let myself feel like I am too weak to win that battle. Am I really to weak or am I really not that interested in resisting the opportunity to sin? If we paint a clear picture of that, then could I say that I really, really , deep down inside want to sin that sin? I am being ridiculously honest here. Think about the pattern of sin in your life. Does it not happen in a similar way for all of us? For the devil to not impact my life, I have to resist. If we wonder why he keeps coming around, maybe it is because he finds us not deeply wanting to resist him? Why would he stop coming around? If we resist the devil, he will flee from us. Let's turn it around, if we don't resist the devil, he will feel welcomed in our life and continue to hang around. Yikes! That's not so good!
Did you notice the same sequence in verse 8? Come close to God and He will come close to you? The first step is ours. IF we come close to Him, we can expect Him to come close to us. In fact it is seemingly one of those promises. However, the first move is ours. I believe that when we draw back from Him , he allows that gap to grow. It doesn't mean He lets go of us or gives up on us but He does not force Himself on us. We want those we love to want us, right? How do we want them to show us? We want them to make an effort to be with us. Can we say that our loving God, who loves us beyond our imagination, also wants to see us make an effort? Do we live in a world that we want to sit back and have everything handed to us for the most part? Food for thought. Let's make an effort to have God draw near to us by drawing close to him by prayer, study of the word and considering Him in our daily lives. "Treat" Him as important as we "say" He is.
We can't have it both ways and be successful in either. As Scripture says, if we do "our loyalty is divided between God and the world".
Verse 9 is what really got to me. "Let there be tears for what you have done" Tears? When have I ever felt so bad about what I have done to God, that I was in tears? Honestly, I can't remember once. I can remember crying about how hard life was and how much I wanted help. I can't remember a level of remorse that brought me to tears. We have all heard stories of people crying there way out of a traffic ticket. How can we feel so bad before an officer of the law that we would be brought to tears yet not even come close to being before our Mighty God and feeling so flippant about our sin? Good food for thought again?
Let there be sorrow, deep grief, sadness and gloom. Wow really? I may have been sad at times, but the others, not so sure. When I allow the devil into my life, when I fail to be upright, does my demeanor change? Do I feel any such thing? Do I continue to walk around like it is no big deal, all the while still being joyful and filled with laughter? I think we can all guess the answer to that one too. Maybe we take pour behavior too lightly. I guess I will admit I do. I may be the greatest sinner of us all but there it is. I take sinning too lightly. There I said it. Now I need to set a course to be humble before our God and acknowledge His authority along with His grace, mercy and love. I am told in verse 10 that if I do humble myself before the Lord, "He will lift me up in honor". Not only is that process the correct way to live but He will even honor us in doing so. How great is our God!
Great blessings to you all this day!