“You’ve got this!” is a phrase you might have heard more often this past year. Meant as a statement of confidence in you and your ability to handle things, you and I know the truth. When it comes to spiritual matters, sin knocks that confidence right off our shoulders.

Our sin is not hard to find. It’s with us constantly and Satan is relentless in his consistent attacks. Today’s reading from the book of James provides several things to consider as we face the daily battles against our faith.

Submit to God:
God expects perfection. We are not perfect and never will be. We acknowledge that and in doing so, we place ourselves humbly at his feet. Our submission is one that trusts God’s will for us knowing how dearly he loves us in spite of our sin and because of Jesus.

Resist the devil:
You likely have heard that God is stronger than Satan and that’s true. Knowing that can’t allow us to sit back. Satan is powerful, conniving, relentless. He never gives up and with God’s help, we can’t either. We need to fight each day with God’s Word as our weapon.

Come near to God:
We can’t go to God on our own. God’s grace, given to us through Jesus, allows us to go to him with repentant hearts, confident that forgiveness is ours. God is always near to us.

Wash your hands:
In the Old Testament, this was a picture of washing away the sins people had committed. Soap, water, hand sanitizer can’t touch our sin but through Jesus, we are cleansed from sin.

Purify yourselves:
God doesn’t want us to be a Christian sometimes and worldly the rest of the time. In these words, he encourages us to live in a way that our faith is part of each day, all day, in all we do.

Grieve, mourn, and wail:
God is not telling us to walk around downhearted. Rather, we are encouraged to grieve our sins and put our lives of sinfulness behind us. Repentance leads us to inexpressible joy in knowing our sins are forgiven and we are right with God.

Humble yourselves before the Lord:
By nature, we are fiercely independent. When we recognize and repent of our sin, we humbly lean on God’s mercy for us, the only source of true peace.

That’s quite a list. “I’ve got this?” We can see that it’s only with God’s help that we can do any of these things.  God is all powerful, gracious, compassionate.  He looks at us with his love, his grace, and his mercy. In humility and gratitude, we can approach each day with joy and share that joy of peace through faith with those we serve, those we know, and in all we do. God’s got all of this and through faith, we do as well.