James 4

This chapter James' warning us against worldliness.

You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel.

James explains that the "wars and fights" among Christians are due to lust of flesh. Based on commentaries, his reference to 'murder' is less so about killing and more so about the heart posture that is shown via anger. This language is aggressive because he wants us to understand the depth of evil and hatred towards one another. If two believers are walking in the Spirit of God, there will be no fighting among them. God does not create in us lustful desires, nor does he bring bitterness and covetousness upon us; those are from our earthly desires. The sad thing is that we tend to strive after lusts of the world, which leads to temptation to fulfill sinful desire but that does not satisfy us so we're left with sinning a lot and yet never being satisfied.

 You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.

Our desires stem from our lack of seeking God for our needs. We are reminded the power and importance of prayer and to ask God when we pray. However, James warns us against selfish prayer. When you do ask God, what are your motives? Are they selfish? This leads to the good old vending machine/genie analogy where we treat God like a vending machine, just asking him for what we want when we want and waiting for him to spit it out right when we ask. It's like asking God to be your servant to join you in your service of meeting earthly desires. One commentary puts it beautifully, "We must remember that the purpose of prayer is not to persuade a reluctant God to do our bidding. The purpose of prayer is to align our will with His, and in partnership with Him, to ask Him to accomplish His will on this earth".

Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

James points out that we cannot be friends with the world and friends of God at the same time. It defies His will and purpose for our life. Our God is a jealous God and yearns after our hearts. The type of jealousy can be explained as the betrayal of a person with an unfaithful spouse; they are faithful to the spouse but the spouse is not faithful to them. I believe He uses the Holy Spirit to gently convict our hearts so that we turn away from our evil ways and move to align more with Him.

But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: "God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble."

Sin won't win when we draw near to God. "Sin seeks to enter, grace shuts the door; sin tries to get the mastery, but grace, which is stronger than sin, resists, and will not permit it. Sin gets us down at times, and puts its foot on our neck; grace comes to the rescue... Sin comes up like Noah's flood, but grace rides over the tops of the mountains like the ark." (Spurgeon)

God gives and gives more and more grace, He is abounding in love. He resists the proud but extends His grace to those who are humble. Grace and pride are like oil and water; they cannot mix, they oppose each other. Pride puts oneself in the spotlight and and expects praise and blessings due to own works whereas grace is not given due to anything we have done or could ever do, it is given on the basis of who God is. Humility doesn't earn God's grace but the posture of humility is what positions us to receive it freely.

Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.

It's wild that we need to be reminded (myself included) to submit to God, to surrender to Him, to put Him first when He is the Creator of the Universe! There is such heaviness on my heart that I would ever put my needs/wants above His or that I would think of myself so highly that I can do life on my own or that I would turn to God only out of my own selfish need. Submitting to Him shouldn't feel like a task, we should surrender to Him because He created us, He has good plans for us, and He will give us peace. Resisting Him will not lead to His goodness. When we draw near to Him, He is excited and quickly comes to draw near to us (I get the image of the prodigal son). We can draw near to Him in prayer, worship, journaling, reading His word, thanksgiving, silence, so many ways! Drawing near to Him will also refine us to be better image bearers of God and less like the world and the enemy.

When we draw near to God, we come to him as sinners and humble ourselves. He will lift us up! Like mentioned earlier, when we are humble, that's when we receive God's grace.

Do not speak evil of one another. He who speaks evil of a brother and judges his borther, speaks evil of the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. There is one Lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy. Who are you to judge another?

Are we godly in the way that you speak about others? Earlier in James he talks about the power of the tongue. In this chapter he warns against worldliness and I do feel like gossip and speaking bitterly over someone is very common in our day and age (hello reality tv shows). When we judge and speak poorly of others, we are basically posturing ourselves as a judge, which is not our authority, that's God's job.

Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit"; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that." But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.

^^ i hear you God, loud and clear!

This was so convicting because as a planner and very Type A person, I love to have a game plan, and know exactly what my future holds. Well, jokes on me because I don't know nor will I ever know what my future holds and I overestimate my ability and underestimate my limitations of doing life my way.

"There are two great certainties about things that shall come to pass--one is that God knows, and the other is that we do not know." (Spurgeon) Aint. That. The. Truth.

Life is so fleeting and while planning in it of itself is not bad, James encourages us not to plan apart from relying on God and His will.

To him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.

It's easier said than done to do all these things (live in humility, do good, don't sin, etc). But because we know and are called to goodness through the Word, we are accountable to do them. Like James has said many times in this book, our faith is proven through action.

Takeaway...

We are to humble ourselves to receive God's grace and to be transformed so that we can live in the world but not of it. Our sin comes from earthly desire and the more that we draw near to God, the less that sin has a hold on us. We are to partner with God in this life.