Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
James 4:7b
Oh, there is a major war going on! It is something fierce and brutal and the stakes are high – heaven or hell. And it is going on right inside of each and every one of us. It is our passions warring for things and comfort and money and influence and beauty. We desire and then covet and sin as a result. Our prayers are tainted by the blood of the battle. We ask for God for things to spend on our passions. I am not just talking about the obvious sinful desires for fame, fortune, and success, which we feel pulled toward, even if we don’t always ask outright. But what about those “sanctified” passions in our hearts and minds? “If you grow this church or ministry I am leading, more people will come to know you”, when in reality it is for the sinful passion in our hearts for influence and success, to be leading something important. Or maybe we are cloaking our desire for a better paying job or nicer house or more things in the garment of ministry. “I could do so much more for your kingdom if I had more money or these things’”, when in reality our heart craves these things to be spent on our own selfish passions. There is a battle going on.
What are we to do? We all feel it brewing inside of us, pulling, pulling our heart’s affections away from the Savior who has life and who gave up so much for us. Everywhere our eyes rest and our mind travels there are temptations there waiting to snare us, to spiritually cripple us, to kill us even. James tells us in our verse to resist Satan and he will leave us alone. Jesus did this. He resisted temptation to the point of sweating drops of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane before the crucifixion. To the point of blood folks. How much do we resist; do we even resist at all? A pastor whose teachings I find helpful recently asked a stirring question. He asked if we have scars from resisting the rope that is trying to pull us into the pit of sin. Sadly, many of us resist little, if at all, before we dive in head first. Certainly not to the point of blood, rarely to the point of pain.
The author of Hebrews says,
In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. (Hebrews 12:4)
Jesus endured the bloody, excruciatingly painful cross while bearing the sins of the world upon his shoulder and the rejection of the beloved father. He bore it why? He certainly did not deserve it, not one ounce. He bore it for the joy set before him we are told. The Garden of Gethsemane, the Crucifixion – he pushed through mind bewildering pain and torment and he has the scars to prove it. Do we have even the tiniest injury to show that we have resisted against the rope of sin in our lives? There is a war going on inside of us, whether or not we want to admit it. Maybe we are not aware of it because we have stopped resisting, we have muted the voice of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Oh Lord, may we resist temptation and sin until we have rope burn! May we resist, by the power of your Spirit, until the devil flees!
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