James 4: 1-10
(1) What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members?
Are you focused on satisfying your own physical needs? Getting the things that will provide comfort to yourself?
(2) You lust and do not have; so you commit murder.
You assassinate someone's reputation to obtain what you think they have.
You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel.
You want what someone else has, so you pick fights, and argue, and sue them.
You do not have because you do not ask.
(3) You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.
Jesus said to ask for what we need, but God loves us too much to give us what would not be good for us. And when we ask just to waste it, no wonder He doesn't grant it to us.
(4) You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
An adulteress is one who is not faithful to her husband. Jesus is our husband, as the Bridegroom to His bride, the church. When we turn to the world to satisfy our desire for pleasurable things and relationships that are outside of His plans for us, then we are turning away from Him, and being unfaithful to Him.
We're acting like the world provides better than our Maker, treating Him as an enemy who doesn't want good for us.
(5) Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: "He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us"?
The best translation of the Greek here is in the NIV footnote: "that God jealously longs for the Spirit that He made to live in us."
The difference between envy and jealousy is that envy desires what belongs to someone else, and jealousy is not wanting to lose what belongs to them. He just said that we are committing spiritual adultery, and God is a jealous God, He does not want to share us with the world.
(6) But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, "God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble."
God's grace is always more than we need, and He will give us all the more grace when we're struggling to turn back to Him from the world. The quote is from Proverbs 3: 34: "Surely He scorneth the scorners: but He giveth grace to the lowly." (KJV).
(7) Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
God will help us to turn to Him, to submit to Him. The devil knows that God is in us, and when we confront him, he must flee away! We are to run away from temptation, but when we confront the devil, we must stand our ground!
(8) Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.
In several places God has said that, "If you seek Me, you will find Me, if you search for Me with your whole heart; I will be found by you" (Jeremiah 29: 13. See also I Chronicles 28: 9 and II Chronicles 15: 2).
Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
We who have been sinning need to wash our hands of these things; we who have been bouncing between God's ways and the worlds ways need to decide to follow God and confess our wandering to Him for cleansing, and leading us aright, and purifying our hearts.
(9) Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom.
If you have been enjoying the pleasures of sin and worldly delights, then turn around; realize how you've been breaking your Lord's heart, and mourn and weep for hurting the One who loves you more than you can imagine!
When God saved me, I wept for having hurt the heart of the One who Loved me that much! He made such an impression on me, that even now, almost 50 years later, I will never go back to that besetting sin that had me trapped, that God released me from that day!
(10) Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.
I gave my whole life to Him that day, because I knew I didn't know what I was supposed to do, and He knew why He had given me this life. I became His bond-slave, willing to follow Him wherever He would lead, and He has blessed me beyond my fondest dreams!
I cannot out-give God. When I try to bless one of my sisters in the Lord, she just blesses me more! Whenever I give what I "can't afford," He just gives me more!
He always generously gives us more grace whenever we think we lack the resources we need. He is our Source for everything!
O my Father, thank You for all of Your goodness and grace and provision! Thank You for Loving us more than we can ever imagine!
O Father, help us to know that this world can never satisfy us, and that when we turn to it for its pleasures, they always come with a cost.
You give to us freely, and the abundance of the Lord comes with no regrets (Proverbs 10: 22). And our only cost is a benefit, to be under the Master's authority! To have His provision and protection.
Father, we Your children need to get to know You better, so we will always turn to You instead of to the world. To know You is to love You back! And we will also love who You love, those who are still in the world.
My Father, You have chosen to create the human race to be Your children. This is why You are not willing for any to perish. You want every one of us to turn to You, but You've given us the choice; and You know that not all of us will believe You.
Send out Your children, Father, into all the world, to let them know how much You love them, to rescue them from their traps and cages that hold them hostage, even snatching them out of the very fires of hell licking at their heels.
And every eye shall see, every knee will bow, every tongue will proclaim that Jesus is our Christ, the Lord God Almighty, sovereign King over all Creation; to the everlasting glory of Almighty God the Father, for ever and ever. Amen.
Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus!
