Today's encouragement comes from James 4:6, where we read these words:
"But [God] gives more grace. Therefore He says: 'God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble.' "Are we not glad that God "gives more grace"? This is a reference to sanctify-ing grace, that both causes us to humble ourselves (before the Lord), and which increases our humility (before Him). No one who is thinking clearly would really want to be "resisted" by God. After all, who could withstand the Almighty?
Let us humble ourselves today, under the Lord's powerful hand; and in that position enjoy the sweet peace and freedom that only comes to the contrite lovers of God (in Christ). Our Triune Deity does not, and cannot "resist" the truly humble soul. To those children of His, God "gives more grace."
[Puritan quote of the day: "When you go to mourn for sin, begin aloft with Christ: and do not always think to begin below with sin, and so to come up to Christ; but begin aloft with Christ, and so by your humiliation, fall down upon sin.” —William Bridge, in "A Lifting Up for the Downcast"]
