How to Resist The Devil and Temptation in Addiction: James 4

Hi, this is Suzanne, and welcome to Holy Recovery, a podcast for believers recovering their lives from the chains of addiction. Whether you're new to recovery, hoping to start, or have been walking this journey for years, welcome. You're among friends who get it. I get it. Now on to today's episode and your weekly biblical shot of hope, encouragement and truth. I hope you enjoy it, hi, and welcome everyone. This is Suzanne. Are we close to God when we are in active addiction? Can we be? When our worlds revolve primarily around what everything has us bound? Can our relationship with God still be primary in our lives, secondary? Is it even on our daily map? Today we are in the book of James, a book that offers so much guidance, strength and hope on our journey of recovery. I used to not like James very much. I thought it was just a list of everything we shouldn't do and I really didn't want to hear it. You know why I didn't want to hear it Because I wasn't living my life right and I was convicted. Now I love James. It's full of so many important verses. This is James, chapter 4, verses 7-10. So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Come close to God and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners. Purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world. Let there be tears for what you have done, let there be sorrow and deep grief. Let there be sadness instead of laughter, and gloom instead of joy. Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will lift you up in honor. Powerful words, hard ones, depending on where you are on this walk. God wants us to draw near to him, to have an intimate, close relationship with us. He is our Father, our Daddy. He wants to love us like a parent and wants the best for us. Like a parent, I mean, don't we all want good things for our children? I mean, I do so, does God? But to get there, we need to repent and be humble, and that's hard, and this requires a continuous turning away from the old self and a continuous turning toward God. This passage is a roadmap of how to repent. God tells us both what to do and what not to do. We need to yield to God's wisdom and we need to stop thinking that we can live our lives our own way. That never works, absolutely never. We must do all the things that God says, not some of the things and not the ones we like, and only the ones we like. All the things. We cannot reject His words. We can't oppose God, resist Him or, worse, take the enemy side. It's far too easy to come across a command we don't like and twist it into something we do like. That happens all the time. We must put our lives under God's control surrender. In verse 6, james says God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. The proud will not bend to the will of God. They want their own way. They know best, they want to be the ruler of their lives. But when we humble ourselves, we will be willing to listen and follow God. Surrender is the key to a life of recovery. We have to stop trying to do it on our own. We can't. We have to stop trying to work it all out on our own. We can't. We have to stop trying to negotiate or moderate or fit our addictions into a workable box in our lives. We can't, but God can. We only need to try and let Him do the rest. Stop resisting God and start resisting the devil. Submit your life to God. To submit to the devil is to resist God. So we need to fight the devil, withstand him, oppose him. We need to actively resist the devil and his influence. Stop listening to that little voice whispering in our ears and tisying us and tempting us. That's not God, that's the devil. So stop listening, stop giving into the devil, stop letting him drag you into sin by igniting and fanning the desires within you. There's never a good end to that. There are two promises in these verses. First, it's possible to resist the devil. It doesn't often feel like it does it. Our desires and wants flare up inside us and it seems impossible to do anything but give in. But we are not bystanders who cannot do anything about these temptations. We don't have to throw up our hands and be defeated. We are not powerless. We are not powerless. We can resist the devil. It's not a hopeless fight. How often do we feel that we will never win this fight? How often do we think that we have sins that we will never be able to overcome? But we can. The second promise is just as powerful. You can resist the devil and when you do, he will run from you, he will flee. Resist the devil and he will leave you alone, probably not forever. His greatest desire is to destroy us, so you can be sure he will keep trying as long as we are breathing. This is why we need to stay in close relationship with Jesus, so that the next time the devil comes hanging around tempting you and trying to turn you to sin, you'll know what to do and have the strength and wisdom to do it. The devil even tempted Jesus for 40 days and 40 nights. Jesus resisted repeated temptations and he did it with Scripture, he did it with the Word of God and finally the devil gave up and fled. We can do the same. As people in recovery. We know we will have temptations. That's just part of being in recovery. The devil knows our weaknesses and he will use it to destroy and kill us. He wants to kill us. He's our enemy and we won't just have one temptation. Fight it and be done, I wish, but no, we will be tempted and we will resist, and the devil will flee. We can fight and we can win, and that's good news. These verses in James call us to repent our sins, purify our hearts, shed tears for what we have done. I've shed a lot of tears. We need to recognize the extent of our sin, our separation from him, and be sincerely sorry for it. And when we do that, as hard as it is, he will lift us up in honor. The ESV says he will exalt you. That's pretty big. He doesn't just leave us there in sadness and despair. He lifts us out of it and lifts us up in honor, exalted, loved, free your weakness, your addiction does not have to be a lifelong battle, a day-to-day struggle. I truly believe that when you grow in your faith, you keep tucking the word in your heart and truly begin to walk closely with the Lord. The devil comes around less and less. He knows it won't work. He'll still try occasionally, and usually when you least expect it. But it won't work and it won't be a prolonged battle. It's so important to stay in relationship with God, to read the Bible, to find a church that is biblically sound and preaches and lives out the true word, to surround yourself with people who love the Lord and live like it, to let the Holy Spirit come alive in your heart and your life. Keep God first. When he's there, nothing else can be. When he's there, everything and I mean everything and your life will fall into place. No temptation will rock you, no addiction will destroy you, no devil will sway you, no hell will await you. God first, and God only, not us God. Your life will never be the same. I'll see you next time. Thanks again for being part of our community here. It Means the World to Me. I'll see you next time.