Sub • Mission

Read James 4:1-12

This week, we have been talking about what it means to be kingdom people in a divided world. It’s fitting that this is the last Scripture passage for the whole devotional because James has both a great summary and a great challenge for us as it relates to being kingdom people: submit to God. 

James writes that we are to submit our whole selves to God (v. 7). Not just our motives, but our whole selves. Not only our plans and our politics and our opinions and our votes, but our whole selves!

A professor once explained the word “submission” to me this way: submission means putting your mission under (sub) the mission of another. 

Humility is wrapped up in submission; you can’t have one without the other. I don’t know about you, but I look around the world, the Internet, the church, and even my own community and I see more fighting and quarreling than ever before. I see the slander James talks about in verse 11, I see the judgment James talks about in verses11-12, I see the self-serving motives James talks about in verses 1-3, and I see the pride James talks about throughout this passage. If I’m honest, I see these things in myself as well. 

What would it look like for me to seek first to be a friend of God, to seek first the mission of God, to seek first the heart of God, to seek first the love of God? To set down my plans, and my beliefs and my agenda, and pick up the plans, beliefs, and agendas of the kingdom of God? To acknowledge that any allegiance I make to a tribe, tongue, or nation pales in comparsion to the allegiance I pledge to Christ (Revelation 7:9-10)? 

I think James gives us an insight into what this might look like. It might look like taking time to come clean before God and others, to purify our hearts, to become single-minded about Kingdom issues. To grieve, mourn, and wail, to become serious and humble. To forgive and to let things go. To be willing to be wrong, to set down our gavel and step down off of the seat of judgment. 

Kingdom people are people who are on mission for God first. Eastbrook, let’s set down our missions and place them under the mission of God. Let’s be Kingdom people on the journey together.

For Reflection: What stood out to you in this passage from James? What is the Holy Spirit prompting you to set down in order to live on mission for God? How can a diverse community like Eastbrook maintain what makes us different without being divided? How does James address this? 

by Liz Carver