This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Welcome to our look at James chapter 4 in Daily Drive Time Devotions, day 3
verses 6 and 7 today. We've been talking the last couple of days about trusting
God to lift you out. When we're down, when life doesn't seem to be going the
direction that our heart would desire.

What do we do? Well, first you trust God to lift you out. You recognize I need
to be lifted out because there's something in me that's dragging me down and
there's something in this world that's dragging me down.

But it's not enough just to be lifted out. That sort of puts you in neutral. We
all need a positive, regular experience of also being lifted up by the love of
God.

So you trust God to lift you out and then verses 6 and 7, you trust God to lift
you up. Somebody on our research team wrote me, this is a great statement, it's
one that my father quoted to me at least a hundred times, "Submit yourselves to
God, resist the devil, he will flee from you. " That is a verse that is worth
memorizing.

If you want God to lift you up, then you have to recognize the clear truth. It's
in verse 6, "God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. " When I
go after my way, pridefully and selfishly, I am on opposite sides with God.

God is even working against me, he opposes that. Even if my goal is good, a good
thing, if my method is pride, then God's working against me. Even if your goal
is good, if your method is pride, then God is working against you.

But when I trust God's way, when I humble myself, these verses say God gives
grace, his gifts, his gifts not only for salvation, but for daily life. In fact,
my goal, your goal should be to live a grace life. Not a great life, but a grace
life.

Live within God's grace and then he will lift you up to whatever greatness or
notice that he intends. You go after greatness apart from grace and you'll find
yourself always fighting God because you'll try to get it your way. No matter
what temporary successes you might achieve, you're always going to be
discouraged inside.

No, you go after a grace life and then you do really live the great life that
God has intended. God wants to lift you up. Now where does that begin?

It begins with the first two words in verse 7, "Submit yourselves. " Submit
yourself. Submitting begins with submitting.

Now this word submit, it's a military term that means to get into your proper
rank. If you're in a boot camp and a new recruit comes in and they start
immediately to act like they're the drill sergeant, they get in front of
everybody, you know trouble is on the way. They're not submitting.

They're not in their proper rank. And the Bible says submit to God. Recognize
who God is and recognize who you are.

How do you do that? How do you submit to God in a life lifting way? Well James,
beginning in verses 6 and 7, gives us five practical life lifting decisions that
we can make, that we can practice daily, things that we can do to submit to God.

And whenever you're saying, "Lord, I feel down. I feel discouraged. I feel
depressed today.

Lift me up. " This is where you start. These are the exercises that you start
with.

Check these five things first to see if you don't need to do one of these.
You're going to find most days that you feel down, there's one of these five
things that you need to do. We're going to look at the first of them today and
then the rest tomorrow.

The first is at the end of verse 7, "Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
" If I want to be lifted up by God, one of the ways I have to submit to God is I
have to resist the devil. I have to recognize who I am and who God is and that
Satan has no place in my life if I'm going to be lifted up by God.

This reminds us of Ephesians chapter 6 where the Bible talks about putting on
the full armor of God to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. To resist
the devil is to stand firm against the devil. Notice it doesn't say here that we
run from Satan, but we resist Satan.

Jesus did this. Here's our example. In Matthew chapter 4 when Jesus was taken
out into the wilderness and was there tempted by Satan, the Bible says that he
resisted that temptation.

And you might remember that each time he resisted that temptation, he resisted
it by quoting scripture to Satan, by showing God's truth to Satan. Even Jesus
gave us the example that we don't resist on our own energy and power. I don't
come against Satan on my own power.

Satan, I command you on the name of Tom Holliday to depart. That's never going
to get me anywhere. I resist Satan on the basis of God's power, God's word.

And Matthew chapter 4 verse 11 tells us that after Jesus had resisted, then the
devil left him. Here's the truth. You're going to be tempted all your life on
this earth, but not constantly.

You're going to be tempted from time to time and sometimes greater and sometimes
less. Temptation is going to hit you. But these verses remind us that if you
resist, Satan will flee.

He will flee. Sometimes we get discouraged and think, I'm going to be tempted at
this same level all of my life. How am I going to ever resist it?

I can't do it. That's one of the temptations that Satan sends your way. He says,
I'm going to just pour this on you for the rest of your life.

Well, that's a lie. Satan's a liar, so he's lying about that too. In fact,
anything that you hear Satan saying to you in your mind, you can depend on this.

It's a lie because Satan is a liar. And if you resist, Satan will flee. There
will be times of greater temptation, times of lesser temptation.

God knows what you can handle. And he gives you the strength to resist, to say
no to that tempting thought, to say yes to God. In fact, that's the way that you
resist.

You don't resist a temptation by just thinking about the temptation. You resist
a temptation by thinking about God. In fact, the Bible doesn't tell us
necessarily that we should resist temptation.

We resist the devil. And we resist the devil by saying yes to God. If all you
think about are your temptations, then you're going to fall to temptation.

Now you turn your thoughts to the right. You turn your thoughts to God. You see,
if you resist, Satan will flee.

But if you say yes to God instead, Satan's temptation will go away. If you say
yes to Satan, the temptation will stay. This idea of resisting temptation
reminds me of something that Watchman Nee wrote.

He wrote that satanic temptation enters mainly, if not exclusively, in the form
of thought. This is why the children of God must learn how to resist inordinate
thoughts. However, they should be careful lest they become overly attentive.

We must indeed resist improper thoughts, yet we should not be wholly occupied
with our thoughts. I would like to cry aloud that over these years I have seen
two extremes. Some people exercise no restraint in their thoughts.

Others are totally taken up with dealing with their thoughts. The latter are
just as deceived by Satan as the former. Further, they are likely candidates for
a nervous breakdown.

So we need to maintain the right balance. That was Watchman Nee. And what he's
saying there is, when I'm resisting temptation, I don't just focus on the
temptation, focus on my thoughts, pharisaical thinking.

No, I think about God instead. How do you resist? Is it just a matter of me
saying no?

Absolutely not. It's a matter of grace. Grace is the power to resist temptation,
to resist the devil.

God wants us to depend on his grace, while Satan wants us to depend on
ourselves. And if you depend on yourself to say no to temptation, don't miss
this, you're falling into Satan's trap. Here's what happens.

You depend on yourself to say no to temptation, and you find maybe even that you
were able to say no, and then you become prideful that you were able to say no
based on your own power. And guess what? You've fallen into a different
temptation, the temptation of pride.

It's Satan's trap. So what do you do instead? You depend on God.

You depend on his grace. You say, God, I'm desperate. Right now I need your
help.

Turn my thoughts to you. I decide to turn my thoughts to you. Instead of
thinking about this over here that Satan wants me to be tempted by, I turn my
thoughts to you, and I think about whatever is good and honorable and right and
pure and lovely, whatever is excellent and worthy of praise.

That's what I think about. I think about you. Now, before we pray today and pray
about our temptations, I want you to note in these verses that these verses
we've just looked at the last three days talk about the world, the flesh, and
the devil, our great three enemies.

The world talked about being a friend of the world, and that makes you an enemy
of God. The flesh, we talked about the desires that battle within you on day one
of this study. And here, the devil resists the devil.

Those are the three great enemies, but none of them can be victorious in our
lives over God's great grace and great love for us. So let's take a moment to
talk to him. And in prayer, I encourage you to resist the devil right now by
turning your thoughts to God.

Instead of praying, "Satan, I resist you. Satan, I resist you. " I encourage you
to pray, "God, I accept you.

God, I invite you in. God, I turn my thoughts to you. Lord, I've been thinking
about some things lately.

I've been going some directions lately. I'm tempted to go some directions right
now that I know are wrong. Instead of thinking about those wrong directions that
I'm tempted to go, I turn my thoughts right now to the right directions that you
intend for me, that you intend for me in my life, that you intend for me in my
relationships, that you intend for me in my thoughts.

God help me to fill my mind with thoughts of you. And as I do that, I pray, I
pray that I would see the promise of these verses coming true. I resist the
devil and he will flee from you.

He cannot live in the presence of that kind of light, that kind of truth. I turn
my thoughts to you right now, Father. I want to live my life for you, not for
these empty temptations.

I want to live my life for you. Give me the strength to do so, the grace to do
so. I depend on you to do so.

In Jesus' name, amen. Join us tomorrow. We're going to talk about four more
practical ways that you and I can submit to God so that he can lift us up.