Daily Bread 2010 - James 4
1 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
Again today in James 4, there are many practical applications for life together in the Christian community. Apparently the church James was a part of was very human, just like it is today! I.e. Being in Church does not make anyone immune from the struggles in the world.
But at the same time, James helps us to look deeper at why we get angry, fight and quarrel. Yes, sometimes in the church there are quarrels. James argues that the reason we fight is that we do not get want we want, and we do anything to satisfy the desire to get what we want (sounds like a three year old huh?). But yet sometimes as adults, we revert to adolescent or pre-adolescent behavior.
This is along the same lines as praying for things we want, because we want them, not because we God wants them for us. And we wonder why some of these prayers don’t get answered? Verses 7-9 give us some of the prescription for how we can change. Submit to God, flee the devil and draw near to God. It seems apparent that when there is envy, strife and quarreling that our enemy is ecstatic that he is causing such division in the church and in us.
But yet there is the promise that as we humble ourselves in this manner, God will lift us up. This shows that at the root of this quarreling, grand-standing and having to get our own way (or sense of entitlement) is the result of the age old sin, “pride”! As we humble ourselves God can begin to transform us from the inside out, so that our old desires to control and manipulate can be replaced with submission, humility and a pure heart that seeks to please God and others, not only ourselves.
Where do this type of attitude affect you? Can you submit yourself to God and draw near to him today!
Jesus we humble ourselves realizing that we are all too often like James’ church. Help us to look out for the interests of others instead of just our own. Help us to be the church you envision that would be the light of the world and draw people to your saving love, in Jesus name, Amen.
Again today in James 4, there are many practical applications for life together in the Christian community. Apparently the church James was a part of was very human, just like it is today! I.e. Being in Church does not make anyone immune from the struggles in the world.
But at the same time, James helps us to look deeper at why we get angry, fight and quarrel. Yes, sometimes in the church there are quarrels. James argues that the reason we fight is that we do not get want we want, and we do anything to satisfy the desire to get what we want (sounds like a three year old huh?). But yet sometimes as adults, we revert to adolescent or pre-adolescent behavior.
This is along the same lines as praying for things we want, because we want them, not because we God wants them for us. And we wonder why some of these prayers don’t get answered? Verses 7-9 give us some of the prescription for how we can change. Submit to God, flee the devil and draw near to God. It seems apparent that when there is envy, strife and quarreling that our enemy is ecstatic that he is causing such division in the church and in us.
But yet there is the promise that as we humble ourselves in this manner, God will lift us up. This shows that at the root of this quarreling, grand-standing and having to get our own way (or sense of entitlement) is the result of the age old sin, “pride”! As we humble ourselves God can begin to transform us from the inside out, so that our old desires to control and manipulate can be replaced with submission, humility and a pure heart that seeks to please God and others, not only ourselves.
Where do this type of attitude affect you? Can you submit yourself to God and draw near to him today!
Jesus we humble ourselves realizing that we are all too often like James’ church. Help us to look out for the interests of others instead of just our own. Help us to be the church you envision that would be the light of the world and draw people to your saving love, in Jesus name, Amen.
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