James 4:6 “But he gives all the more grace; therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” Today's episode talks about the meaning of God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Who is the proud, who is the humble? Who has access to this grace we keep talking about, and what do we need to do to get it? Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
He Gives All The More Grace
James 4:6 “But he gives all the more grace; therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
Continuing on with our grace series, I wanted to share this verse with you. This is a pretty popular saying. I have heard it often. So let’s explore what this verse is telling us. First. God gives us all the more grace. If we are trying to live the way the Lord wants us to live, He will give us the grace to do so. Remember, grace is the power to do the right thing. Grace teaches us the right thing to do and then allows us to do it. So, why does the it mean for God to oppose the proud and give grace to the humble. Sometimes I know what a word means, like I could use it in a sentence and yet I don’t understand exactly what it means.
In case this is you too, I want to break this verse down and share with you what I have learned about it. When the verse says God opposes the proud it is talking about those who strive to live by the world’s standards instead of the ones He has given to us. Do we strive to live our life according to the life God has set out before us, or do we strive to live the life the World tells us that we want? The world says that we should care about how much money we make and how much stuff we can accumulate. The world tells us that we should look out for ourselves first and everyone else second. The world tells us family values are a thing of the past. We are being good parents by providing for our family, we don’t have to spend time with them. It tells us that our children don’t want to spend time with us anyway.
The world tells us who we are and who we should be. It tells us that we don’t deserve God’s love, we aren’t good enough for his mercy and grace, so why even bother trying to obtain it? Or it tells us that we have to strive and strive in order to earn God’s love. I know those are two contradicting things, but that is because the enemy is smart, and he will tell you whatever he thinks you need to hear. If you are someone who feels you have to earn love and affection, the enemy will tell you that you need to earn God’s love on your own merit. He will tell you that you have to work harder and harder, and yet you will never really feel like you have worked hard enough. If you are someone who feels like you are never good enough, the enemy will convince you that you shouldn’t even bother to try to earn God’s love because it is too far out of your reach. You simply aren’t enough, good enough, worthy enough, whatever it may be.
What I have learned about this verse is that the proud are the ones who feel they have to earn God’s love on their own. They do not turn to the Lord and ask for His grace to help them change. They feel they can change independently, and then they will come to the Lord. This is prideful. Thinking we can do anything on our own is pretty prideful. We need the Lord to do all things. Well, we need Him to do all things correctly. We can do things on our own, but they definitely don’t turn out how they could if we invited the Lord into everything we do. Does this sound familiar to you? Have you ever thought you needed to do it all on your own? Have you ever felt like you needed to earn God’s love and acceptance? I am pretty sure we have all gone through times when we felt like this.
Hopefully, we have also gone through times of humility. Being humble means that we come to God just as we are. We acknowledge that we are sinful and prideful, and yet we know that because He is all-powerful, He can help us change. We come to the Lord in our weak and broken state with the confidence that His grace can redeem us. God has already redeemed us. He sent His only Son, Jesus, to die on the cross so that we may be redeemed. Humility is accepting this forgiveness and turning to the Lord to help us change.
I would like to say that being humble is something you decide to do and then that is the end of it. You decided to be humble so now you are a humble person. Being humble is something that you need to continually decide. You will be faced with many choices as you go throughout the day and you must keep making the choice that will help you grow in humility instead of pride. The enemy is good and he will try to trick you into choosing things that will actually help you grow in pride instead of humility.
This is where grace comes in. Remember, grace is the power to do the right thing. Even in the face of evil, grace has the power to help us do the right thing. So, how do we call upon this grace? We just ask for it. We just come to the Lord and let Him know we need His grace. It can be as simple as, “God, I know I need you to come into this day with me and help me make the right choices.” It could be as simple as “Come, Holy Spirit, come.” What you say is nearly as important as it is that you do say something. You must acknowledge your reliance on the Lord. Let God know that you invite Him in and that you need Him and His grace.
Without God’s grace, without the Holy Spirit living inside of us, we would be lost. Many of us are lost because we don’t know the power we have living inside of us. We don’t know that we have this grace that we can tap into. We just go through our days relying on our own power and strength and wondering why we are struggling. We wonder why things are so hard.
God is not withholding grace until we become worthy. We are worthy now. He made sure of that when he redeemed us. God has filled each one of us with a reservoir of grace, and all we need to do is call upon that grace. All we need to do is realize that we need that grace, and it is ours. We need to constantly be turning back to the Lord and relying on His grace to help us get through whatever we need to get through.
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless everyone listening to this episode today. Lord, we ask that you help us to rely on your grace. We ask that you help us realize the grace we have inside of us. We ask that you help us overcome our pride and to be more humble. We ask all of this in Jesus’ holy name, Amen!
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. Mentoring this month is all about trusting in the waiting. If you would like to join us, CLICK HERE. Mentoring sessions are on Tuesday evenings at 8 PM EST. on Zoom. I look forward to meeting you here again tomorrow. Remember, Jesus loves you just as you are, and so do I. Have a blessed day and may the grace and favor our of our Lord Jesus Christ be upon you.
Today’s Word from the Lord was received in April 2024 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group, these words, or how to join us for a meeting please email CatholicCharismaticPrayerGroup@gmail.com. Today’s Word from the Lord is, “Vision: We were all in a group, in a circle, doing praise and worship with the tree of life in the center. And the more we prayed and worshiped the Lord, the tree of life grew taller and taller and just became more brilliant and bright.”