Submit yourselves to God

https://odb.org/2026/08/27/where-god-reigns

James 4:1–10 (NIV): 4 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
4 You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us? 6 But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but shows favour to the humble.” 7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

In 2018, a man checked into a room at New York hotel for a one-night stay. Remarkably, he used the room for five years without paying another cent—exploiting obscure rent laws to hold on to it. His refusal to leave, however, eventually led to potential prison time for him.

Like an unwelcome tenant who overstays, James warns us that the devil lingers in our lives when left unchecked. “Resist the devil,” James writes, “and he will flee from you” (4:7). The apostle emphasizes that our struggles often come from impure “desires” and “wrong motives” (vv. 1, 3)—things like pride, divided loyalties, and impure thoughts residing in our hearts. To counter such temptation, James offers two commands: “submit . . . to God” and “resist the devil” (v. 7). To submit means surrendering every part of our lives to God. Resisting the devil is equally active, requiring prayer, vigilance, and the wisdom of Scripture. (Marvin Williams, Our Daily Bread 27th August 2026)

One of the early lessons I learnt as a young believer was that if we resist the devil, he will flee from us. This lesson is strengthened by another verse – greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world (1 John 4:4), meaning to say, Christ in us is stronger than the devil. Thus we are encouraged that when temptation comes, we are able to overcome and rise victorious because Jesus stregthens us. In addition if the devil or demonic spirits were to attack or torment us, we have the upper hand because Jesus is stronger than the devil and his cohorts. We have that certainty as seen in the Gospels of demonic spirits fleeing at Christ’s command. Further, as Jesus has given His disciples authority to cast out demons, we likewise have the same authority over dark forces of the air.

The problem with that teaching is that it is only half of the story as James 4:7 is preceded by the instruction – “Submit yourself to God”. The second half of James 4:7 is true on its own. There is no doubt about that. If we resist the devil, he will flee from us. Except that if we do not submit ourselves to God, the devil will return to torment and bind us, developing into a potentially endless cycle of victory and defeat, guilt, disappointment and elation.

I hold on to the belief that a true Christian cannot be demon-possessed because Christ is already in our hearts. But there could be areas in our lives where the devil may still have control over us. For example, if we dabble in pornography or in the occultic or continue to indulge in drugs (even occasionally) or have sinful habits like sleeping around or with sex workers. All these practices have the potential of dragging us into a defeated Christian life that we may end up eventually losing our salvation since we are certainly not on the narrow road that leads to eternal life.

That is why we need to, at the first and foremost, submit ourselves to God. That includes sanctifying our lives and breaking away all avenues that dark demonic forces may have a hold over our lives. Hidden sins and practices may not be seen by others, for instance, if we live alone and no one sees what we do within our own 4 walls. But God sees everything and knows everything. Most crucially, demons see and know our hidden secrets since they see our spirit man and soul, not so much our outward natural self. If we resist the devil without submitting to God, we have only won half the battle.

Therefore, my beloved brothers and sisters in Christ, submit yourselves to God and resist the devil for indeed he will flee from as greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world! Amen! Hallelujah!