"The Contingency Plan"

James 4:7

7Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.

The apostle James wrote of how pride and thinking too highly of oneself is what causes strife. It is pride that gets in the way of seeing the needs of anyone outside of yourself. It is the reason why you can possibly use people at any opportunity.  It is the reason why you seek certain things but God refuses to release them to you because He knows your true motive for asking.  The apostle James gave the command from God which is that everyone must submit to God. This is the solution to removing pride. It is the solution to resisting the devil and how he will flee.

Saturday night I watched the animated film Justice League: Doom which Wikipedia reports is loosely based from the Justice League story "Tower of Babel". If any of you know "Tower of Babel" it is a real Biblical reference and refers to the pride of the people who wished to build the "highest" tower in recognition of themselves and because of their plan, God stepped in and neutralized them all and changed the languages they spoke so they could not understand each other nor build the tower as everyone once spoke the same language.  But back to the film as this is going somewhere and is very relevant to this scripture. Vandal Savage had a plan to wipe out a portion of the earth but what he needed was to get the Justice League out of the way. So how did he do it? He used Batman's plans. Batman was a very calculated person who knew the strengths and weaknesses of each person in the Justice League. And in the event that anyone from the Justice league became overpowered by pride because of the authority and power they had, Batman understood what would weaken them and "neutralize" them. However, Vandal Savage took Batman's information and expounded on it so that neutralizing would turn to killing them. He then used those who had personal vendettas against the Justice League and would carry out his expanded plan. Each one of them thought they killed  the perspective Justice League member.

Now what does this have to do with the scripture? Everything! In the event you begin to think too highly of yourself because of whatever position and/or authority, blessing you have been allowed to receive, God has a way to "neutralize" you. He has a "contingency" plan for you. What you don't often understand is that just as He has a "contingency" plan for you, the devil and enemy of your soul like Vandal Savage, hopes to find out what that plan is and use it to steal, kill and destroy you and everything God has for you. He may even enlist others who have a personal vendetta against you and or want what you have and will do whatever it takes to get their hands on it. So how do you prevent the devil from taking a plan to neutralize to one that  steals from you, kills you and destroys all you have and are? Submit to God!! Submitting to God stops the enemy from getting his foot in the door. Submitting to God means you won't have time to entertain the devil at all! It means that you remember whatever God has given you, actually belongs to God and you must count yourself privileged to have whatever position, whatever authority, whatever blessing, whatever you have and know that it is because of GOD that you have it. When you submit to God you don't even have time to entertain those people who mean you no good and seek to use you.

P.S. Remember to RSVP for my book signing event on Sunday, November 10th at Barnes & Noble  for Shh Don't Tell in Baltimore (The Avenue at White Marsh) from 4pm-8pm. I can't wait to see YOU!!