James 4:7-10 - These verses are full of verbs: submit... resist... draw... cleanse... purify... humble yourselves. To truly live a life that God wants, we must be people of action. The desire to be good is not enough. Temptation will always be there, and we must be active in squelching the desire to give in. We are inherently sinful, and it doesn't taken any effort to give in to our sinful nature. It is when we desire to go against the worldly view that we must work hard. We must be people of action, and recognize that the strength that is necessary can come only from God.
Submit - allow God to take control, and show us the way to go. We do not have the power to resist temptation, yet He does. Thus He is the only one who knows the right way to go about it, and we learn by following Him.
Resist - recognize temptation. We do not just find ourselves in sin, there is always a time of temptation, yet many of us do not recognize it. Satan's techniques rarely change. if he can get us to sin one time, he will continue to tempt us in the same way, until we learn to resist his advances. If we keep our eyes focused on God, we will be able to see when Satan is tring to trick us. only by focusing on God can we resist the devil.
Draw - we must actively work to be close to God. It is not enough to think of how we want to be Christ-like. Daily we msut work to draw near to Him and learn more about Him so that we can live by His nature.
Cleanse, Purify - when we reist temptation and draw closer to God, He will cleanse us and make us pure, so that there will be no sin found in us.
Humble yourselves - none of this is possible if we are proud people. We must become humble in order to accept God's direction. Satan loves our pride, because it disillusions us into believing we are stronger than we are, and Satan uses those weaknesses time and time again. We must submit to God in complete humility, so that we do not give in in any way, but are always able to stand.
