Where do wars and fights come from among you?
Do they not come from your desires for pleasure
that war in your members? You lust and do not have.
You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war.
Yet you do not have because you do not ask.
You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that
you may spend it on your pleasures. Adulterers and adulteresses!
Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?
Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world
makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the scripture
says in vain, "The spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously"?
But he gives more grace. Therefore He says:
"God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble"
James 4:1-6
To some that up "Pride promotes strife". There are many forms of pride,
we've all been guilty of it...wether it's not admitting when we are wrong
because well that would hurt our "pride" or some form of vanity
or simply just an overall self pumping up, where all we seem
to care about is ourselves.
The thing is though, Pride and being a follower of Christ,
well..they don't mix.
a servant of Christ is called to be humble..
Thus says the LORD: "Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom
Let not the mighty man glory in his might
Nor let the rich man glory in his riches;
Jeremiah 9:23
And if some of the branches were broken off and you
being a wild olive tree were grafted in among them
and with them became a partaker of the root and fatness of the olive tree
do not boast against the branches. But if you do boast remember that you do not support the root but the root supports you.
You will say then "Branches were broken off that I might be grafted in."
Well said. Because of unbelief they were broken off and you stand by faith. Do not be haughty but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches
He may not spare you either.
Romans 11:17-21
For by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves;
it is the gift of God not of works lest anyone should boast.
Ephesians 2:8-9
Yet many of us struggle with pride, and many boast of the "wonderful"
things that they do in the name of Christ. Trust me if you are one of those
"Look at me" "Christians" God will break you down and He will humble
you real quick. Being boastful/full of pride is not of Christ at all,
it is of the world. This all comes back to the whole idea of "Dying to self"
because if we would let Christ live through us, if we would stop living
for our fleshly desires we obviously wouldn't be so full of pride.
I'm not even referring to people that are of the world, I'm talking
about "Christians" who are prideful. I mean there are so many different
subjects and areas that could be brought up that i'd end up writing
a book. Look at the church, prosperity is the main subject week
after week... It's become not about surrendering to Christ and
dying to self it's become about "Come to Christ because he'll bless
you" "give to the poor and suffering, so you'll get ten fold back".
It's all because it's human nature for us to want. Look at what James
is saying in chapter four, he is not speaking to non-believers here..
he is talking to believers and calling them prideful.
He's calling followers.... adulterers and adulteresses, because they all
were literally being adulterers? no...think about it, what is
after all the sin of adultery? it is a selfish act..no? it is you
getting pleasure out of a need and want for your own desire,
without a care for anyone else but yourself. So hence he was calling
them "Adulterers" because when they would ask God for things
it was all out of a care for themselves...
for example... "God please give me lots of money so I can be rich,
and have 3 cars a big mansion and a hot model wife" obviously
that is an extreme example, they probably were not like that,
The fact is God knows your true intentions,
He knows if you are seeking Him because you are so overwhelmed by
his Grace and mercy or if you are only seeking him because
you want to be "blessed". As James said:
"You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss,
that you may spend it on your pleasures"
It's obviously not all about money either, it could be many things...
another example might be...
"Please God give me the ability to understand your word"
a great thing to ask, but what if the person is only asking it
so that they can look "Holy then thou" and be respected
and looked up to, deep down they are not asking God because
they truly want to know him more, they have other motives.
James also says "Do you not know that friendship with the world
is enmity with God"? and whoever wants to be a friend to the world
is an enemy of God.
What does that mean? People generally like to throw their own ideas
when they see "don't be a friend to the world" just like with
Romans 12:2
"Do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed
by the renewing of your mind"
What they mean(what God meant) by "world" is the "world view",
the world is all about pride, it is all about selfishness, in the world
view we are our own gods, and we do whatever makes us feel good..
without a care for anyone else. James(in James 4:4) and
Paul(in Romans 12:2) are saying you can't have that worldly view!
why? because it totally contradicts the word of GOD! You can't say
i'm a "Christian" but then only care about yourself, because being a
Christian means dying to yourself and living for God, It means putting
others above yourself. If all you care about is how you look, or
what you have, or what this person can do for you or what God
can bless YOU with, then YOU are not of Christ at all.
This is what James was ranting about, he was furious because
they were not seeking to live for God and to do what God wanted
them to do. They wanted to live like everyone else, they lusted
after what their "neighbors had" they cared about their image,
they wanted to still live in worldliness and have God. HOWEVER
it doesn't work like that, God wants all of you...he wants to be your provider, yes absolutely! but you have to surrender to Him,
you have to stop living to "GET" and start living out what you have
already been GIVEN!
You are suppose to live by Gods word, live for Christ and that's it,
you have everything you will ever need! I'm not saying God doesn't
bless people, I'm not saying he doesn't heal, I'm not saying he doesn't
answer prayers, I'm not saying don't pray for struggles going on in
your life. I'm saying one who is truly walking closely with Christ,
knows humility, he knows this world can't save him, he knows that nothing
he can do can save him, and he knows he is not perfect and that through
his imperfections through his humbleness he can bring others to the
freedom that is in Christ. It's not through judgment and condemnation
that we bring others to the freedom we have been given... to the
price that was paid for us. We share our imperfections, not to celebrate
our wickedness but to show that we didn't earn grace but that it
was freely given to us, and we shoulder our burdens together.
Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands,
you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double minded. Lament
and mourn and weep! let your laughter be turned to mourning
and your joy to gloom. HUMBLE yourselves in the sight of the Lord,
and He will lift you up.
James 4:7-10
I'm going to make this very easy to understand, simply because that's
how I am, I'm very simplistic. To me it's not complicated, being a Disciple
of Christ is all about being humble. It's not about living for you, but
living for others. The word of God constantly speaks of being humble,
and generally if you think about it, yes we have our mountains to climb,
but being a disciple being a true Christian is fundamentally easy...
as it's all about surrendering yourself to Christ, I.e Die to Self...
Why do we put ourselves on pedestals? why do we think we are bigger
then we are, as if anything we do somehow amazes God? It doesn't amaze anyone else how our God wants a relationship with us? as if we deserve
such a thing, as if we deserved Him dying on the cross.
HUMBLE yourself before God, let his word be the defining thing in your life.
Just let go of self. Remember Solomon? for those who read the blog..
it's a couple blogs back where I talked about Solomon.
He was the wisest King that ever lived, not to mention the most wealthy.
Did you know he wrote Ecclesiastes? some scholars deny it, but how can you? Ecclesiastes is famous for it's "Everything is meaningless" verses..
who could make such statements? How about a man who had everything,
and in his old age started to see that all his wealth all his power on this
earth wasn't going to last for ever, and to see how short his life was...
to see it was coming to an end, and to see everything he's done, and
all the wealth and wisdom he had was overall meaningless.
Living for yourself....Living for this "worldliness"...it truly is meaningless.
