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Speaker: Jerry Cisar
Marriage is difficult. It is often said that the most difficult thing to overcome in a marriage is infidelity. One thing for certain is that in order for there to be reconciliation, the offending spouse must humble themselves.
Last week’s text (James 4:1-6a) was about a lovers’ quarrel. The lovers in the quarrel are God and His bride, the church—at least those of us who are having a love affair with the world. God is jealous for faithful, committed love from His wife—that we be His and He be ours. That message ended on the note: But He gives more grace. (6a)
God is pursuing us for reconciliation. His grace exceeds our infidelity, our idolatry of pleasures. This week’s texts picks up there telling us how to experience this relationship transforming grace with God. For those of us who have had this love affair with the world, that have loved pleasure in a way reserved only for God, to receive the grace needed to reconcile their broken relationship with God, they must humble themselves.
This leads to the all important question: How do we humble ourselves? How do we cure this roaming heart? How do we stop letting the heart always pursue what it wants? James 4:6b-10 instructs us step by step how to come in repentance, humbling ourselves before the Lord.