James 4:7-*

I have been told the James that wrote this book of the Bible was the half brother of Jesus. I had one of those DA moments. James is the half brother of Jesus? What kind of a story is behind that? DA, Mary was both their Mothers, Jesus Dad was God, James Dad was Joseph. Actually, there is an awesome story behind that. Jesus was God and came down to earth as a man thru the virgin birth to redeem us from our sins. Like I say I had one of those DA moments, it was just for a moment. Maybe I was reading too many old testament chapters. This wife, that wife and Ishmael and Issac were half brothers, etc.  This is the scripture a preacher from Louisiana was talking about and tied it back to II Chronicles 7:14, that I talked about in a recent blog. James 4:7 "Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you."  Submitting to God, what does that look like? Much of what I write is not totally without influence from someone else. Submitting to God means obeying him, obeying his word the Bible. Like Pastor Charles Stanley says, obey God and leave the consequences to God. Obey God when he talks to my heart, not just when it pleases me. Whenever I think about a subject like this, I think of a story from my past that I think illustrates being open to God even when you may not like what he is saying. Actually, it illustrates not being open. My second wife and I were riding in my S10 back from an outing on Hurricane Ridge in the State of Washington. She had a radio preacher on and was listening to a sermon about how husbands ought to treat their wives. About every minute, she would say amen. About halfway thru the sermon, the preacher started to talk about wives and how they should treat their husbands. The radio got turned off before he completed his first sentence. I was amazed at how many Amens she gave while the preacher was talking to husbands, but the minute the sermon turned to what she should really listen to, she turned it off. Done, don't need to hear that. Was it that she didn't want me to know what I should expect from her? I really think to this day, her heart was not open and submitted to God. It was more of a visual Christianity than a heartfelt Christianity. We need to be open to God and willing to hear what God has to say to us. It could be thru a preacher of the gospel, it could be thru our own reading of the Bible. What does it say to me, what is God saying to me? That is submitting to God, willing to hear his voice even if it hurts sometimes. Willing to change our behaviors to please God. God bless, LVZ