{"id":6167,"date":"2015-02-23T04:53:24","date_gmt":"2015-02-23T04:53:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/?p=6167"},"modified":"2015-02-23T23:32:14","modified_gmt":"2015-02-23T23:32:14","slug":"james-46-the-power-of-the-greater-grace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/?p=6167","title":{"rendered":"James 4:6\u2014The power of the greater grace"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, \u201cGod is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.\u201d <\/em>James 4:6<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s review James 4:1-5:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Christians can get into conflict and strife due to envying each other.<\/li>\n<li>We can become so caught up in <em>what\u2019s best for me<\/em> that we start to view other believers as rivals.<\/li>\n<li>We can be petty, contentious, self-centered, and self-serving.<\/li>\n<li>We can prioritize our pleasures over our relationship with God.<\/li>\n<li>James called all of this friendship with the world, and whoever pursues any of these things makes himself an enemy of God\u2014a spiritual adulteress.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This is quite a strong assessment by Jesus\u2019 baby brother. Unfortunately, what James described in this portion of his letter is a universal temptation for all of us who are in Christ. That\u2019s why we are warned about it in the Word of God.<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes you may feel like you\u2019ll never get certain areas of your flesh under control. At other times you may become so gripped by the outrage of strife, misperceptions, critical sniping, or back-stabbing that you want to explode or throw your hands up in disgust\u2014<em>who needs them anyway?<\/em> You may wonder:<em> Will things <strong>ever<\/strong> get any better? Is there <strong>any<\/strong> way out of this pit? <\/em><\/p>\n<p>The way out? Grace. God\u2019s grace is sufficient for you. He is with you in trouble; He is with you when strife rises up against you; He is with you when you are tormented by an avalanche of accusing thoughts. His grace will bear you throughout your life and will bring you safely to your eternal home. If you fall seven times, He won\u2019t fail to lift you up, <em>ever<\/em>. If you sin against Him seventy times seven, He will forgive and then <em>continue<\/em> to do so. He loves you with an intense, everlasting love. Even if you are faithless, He will remain faithful to you. This is your comfort and your strength.<\/p>\n<p>Within each of us exists a soul that must be saturated with the Word of God to overcome the temptations that abound; each of us also has a mind that must be renewed. As you pursue God in your life, if you find yourself falling repeatedly, then repeatedly get back up. Confess your sin to Him who is faithful and righteous to forgive you, and He will cleanse you from all unrighteousness (see 1 John 1:9). Keep pressing on; lean heavily upon Him and hold His Word close.<\/p>\n<p>However, if you seek to justify your sin\u2014whatever it may be\u2014or to excuse yourself from needing to address it before God, you are teetering on the edge. God\u2019s grace still exists for you, but out there on \u201cI\u2019ll Do it My Way Highway\u201d or \u201cBlame Others-ville\u201d, you are in dangerous territory; God will have to deal with your heart before He can pour out His help. Maybe you believe that since Jesus died for all of your sins, past, present, and future\u2014and He did\u2014you get a free ticket to live as you want. <em>It\u2019s all covered, anyway; why should <strong>I <\/strong>get under condemnation? That\u2019s so \u201cbefore Christ\u201d!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>If this describes you, my friend, you are living in a lesser grace; you\u2019re living in &#8220;by-the-skin-of-your-teeth&#8221; grace; you\u2019re living in grieving-the-Holy-Spirit and arousing-the-jealousy-of-God grace. Yeah, there\u2019s grace over there, all right\u2014the kind of grace that enables you to pass through the fire into Heaven after everything you&#8217;ve stood for in life is consumed by the flames of judgment (see 1 Corinthians 3:10-15). However, you don\u2019t want to monkey around in that lesser grace all too long (and believe me\u2014I\u2019ve visited there myself\u2014more times than I care to admit). Theologians disagree as to the limits of God\u2019s grace when it is willfully tested on an ongoing basis; nevertheless, you don\u2019t want to be the one to find out the degree at which \u201cI did it my way\u201d pushes the envelope past the bounds of\u00a0God&#8217;s longsuffering.<\/p>\n<p>That said, I honestly believe God suffers long with us to enable us to deal with issues about which we have grown dull or calloused. He is, after all, full of grace. But He wants us to reflect His nature to the world around us, and if we consistently choose to ignore His conviction, His Word, and His\u00a0reproof, then we won\u2019t manifest Him to <em>anyone<\/em>, no matter <em>what<\/em> we\u00a0say or think.<\/p>\n<p><em>But He gives a greater grace.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Don\u2019t miss out on the greater grace to settle for an inferior, &#8220;get-away-with-it&#8221; grace. The greater grace is powerful stuff, straight from God, poured out through the blood of Jesus, and dwelling within you by the Holy Spirit. The greater grace grants you the power to <em>resist <\/em>that sin; the greater grace enables you to bless those who curse you and to pray for those who despitefully use you (see Luke 6:28). The greater grace empowers you to live out 1 Peter 3:9 so that you don\u2019t repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but instead, you repay evil with blessing. This is your calling in Christ. By this, Peter wrote, you will inherit a blessing.<\/p>\n<p><em>Therefore it says, \u201cGod is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Can you see it? God wants your entire heart. He longs for you to humbly admit your weaknesses, fear, sin, anger, and anxiety to Him as they arise. He\u2019s already aware of them; He just wants to pour out that greater grace upon your life and circumstances\u2014even those secret concerns\u2014so that you can experience His radical help and deliverance. The proud man refuses to deal with his sin; he denies it, ignores it, or excuses it\u2014and he stays stuck in his mess and misses out on all that God has for him. The humble man pours out his failures and concerns before God; he takes to heart the correction given; and he receives forgiveness, cleansing, and grace in world-overcoming, abundant supply.<\/p>\n<p>Why live any longer in the shadows and back alleys of an inferior, \u201cget-away-with-it\u201d grace? Let the Lord lovingly lift you out of that lesser place to the fresh air and sunshine of His greater grace. It will be so worth it.<\/p>\n<p>Dorothy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, \u201cGod is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.\u201d James 4:6 Let\u2019s review James 4:1-5: Christians can get into conflict and strife due to envying each other. We can become so caught up in what\u2019s best for me that we start to view [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-james-4"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6167"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6176,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6167\/revisions\/6176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}