How to Answer Attacks: Submit to His Grace

"Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." (James 4: 7)

Submitting to God -- that is how we resist the devil, that is, stand up to the devil, and he flees from us.

What does it mean "to submit"?

The previous verses provide the answer:

"But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble." (James 4: 6)

When we receive the grace of God, that through the favor of God, we are established in all things, then we are submitting to God.

The grace of God is what it is all about, that everything in our lives is a blessing from Him, not of ourselves.

We do not earn these blessings, otherwise the grace of God would not be grace:

"4Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. 5But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness." (Romans 4: 4-5)

This so humbles us, that apart from Jesus Christ, we can do nothing (John 15: 5), but we are dead in our tresspasses because of our flesh (, but we receive His life by grace through faith (Ephesians 2: 4-8)

When we receive more of Him, then we are resting in His grace, and the devil can do nothing to harm us:

"Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked." ({Ephesians 6: 16)

When we are established in righteousness (Isaiah 54: 14), which we have because Jesus Christ became sin for us (2 Corinthians 5: 21), then we need not move on our own, as if God will not move in our lives:

"He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" (Romans 8: 32)