Pastor Barry's  "Chapter & Verse"  Day 116

April 26;    James 4:6;    116/260(II);    ‘God Resists the Proud’

James 4:6….Therefore He says: "God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble."  

The Lord resists or opposes the proud.  He has to.  Pride tells the Lord I do not need you, I can take care of my own life.  Obviously this is wrong, we all desperately need the Lord.  Pride was the downfall of Lucifer.  The Bible teaches that he was a magnificent angel.  Lucifer was created good, because the Lord would not create evil.  Based on what happened to Lucifer, it is very clear that angels have free wills. Because Lucifer was so magnificent, he actually thought he could rebel against God and take over heaven.  One third of the angels in heaven thought so too.  Their rebellion was short lived and easily crushed by God the Father.  Lucifer, cast down to the earth and now called satan, longs for revenge against God.  Since satan cannot overthrow God, in his hatred for God he now turns his attention to mankind, God’s greatest creation.  Having successfully deceived Eve, which led to Adam’s sin, satan was literally handed the authority given to Adam.  Because of this, the nature of man went from God’s nature of love to the devil’s nature of pride.  The world system, alienated from the Lord, does everything it can to mock Jesus and the things of God.  The devil uses pride to deceive us, deceptively teaching that our mind and our body is all we need.  The Lord opposes this since it hinders greatly the lost from turning to Jesus.  The Lord greatly blesses humble, teachable people who realize that they need help and turn to the Lord.  The grace of God basically means that when someone humbly acknowledges their need for the Lord and His help, He is there to bless them abundantly.