The laws of the land have been established for our protection and safety and I do not think many of us would disagree with that. We have law enforcement folks that are in place to uphold those laws. We follow those laws because we believe they have our best interest and the best interest of others in mind.

There are natural “earth” laws: gravity for instance; you can be sure if you throw something up, it will come down. Electromagnetic laws that say compasses will point “north”. These laws are also “static” meaning they do not change.

There are “spiritual” laws that we do not often think about. If we believe that God created this universe and world and He says there are spiritual laws then regardless of whether we believe in them or not and they are still valid and in place, “static”.

For instance: God says there is a heaven and hell and just because we can not see them does not mean they do not exist. He also says there are forces at work around us even if we cannot see them. It has been my experience that people have no problem believing in demons and the devil and many believe in angels. Getting some people to believe in God, can be a different matter.

This week I heard a life lesson story where a person learned a valuable lesson of ignoring a spiritual law. We get in danger when we only remember parts of a law or parts of a Bible verse instead of looking at the whole phrase.

The scripture I am thinking of is:

“Submit yourselves then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” James 4:7

My friend ran into this principle while they were working out of town. They forgot the first part of the scripture, “submit yourselves to God” a spiritual law followed by “resist the devil,and he will flee from you.” Many times we get it backwards, we chose to tell satan to get lost while ignoring God in the process.

My friend while out of town, isolated from their peers, and accountability friends, their church and their family, bunking with someone not on the same page. They were on their own in the midst of a strange town. This person did not think they would have any problems. Because of the awkwardness of bunking with another person they did not heed the spiritual law, “submit yourselves then to God” and tried to live their life on their own principals and it did not turn out so well.

I believe that satan loves to get believers separated from the other believers. He takes great delight to single us out one by one and watches for the opportune time to strike. He struck at my friend at a moment of weakness and now my friend and their spouse will have some consequences that will have to play themselves out in their marriage.

God gave us this spiritual law, “submit first to me” then…. “resist the devil” but too often we try to resist the devil and not do the first part, thinking we can handle life alone.

God gave me a picture of what this “would” look like.

Only after we have done the first part of the law can we expect to resist satan. Just what does “submit to God” mean? We have to go to the Bible, the spiritual law book for an answer; stay close to Him, to get to know Him so intimately that we know when we have wandered away.

We are the little mouse and we run to the gigantic elephant (God) and only when we are hiding under Him, can we turn and look at evil and say; “na na you cannot touch me”. It is only when we are in the protection of the Mighty God of the universe because then and only then will satan and his helpers stop in their tracks and back off. They do not want to mess with the elephant in the room.