James 4
17 verses
The source of wars and quarrels within the faith community traces not to external circumstances but to internal passions warring within the human heart—desires to possess, status to claim, pride to defend. The fundamental problem is not desire itself but the refusal to ask God: you do not have because you do not ask, and when you do ask with wrong motives—seeking to spend what you obtain on your own pleasures—you receive nothing. Friendship with the world in its rebellion against God constitutes enmity with God, an unbridgeable divide in which no compromise or middle position exists: the person who wishes to be the world's friend declares himself God's enemy. God opposes the proud with active resistance while giving grace to the humble, so the only appropriate response is to draw near to God in humility, and he will draw near to you in mercy and restoration. Believers must cleanse their hands, purify their hearts, and grieve over their divided loyalty between God and the world. The presumption of those who make confident plans about tomorrow without acknowledging God's will—if the Lord wills—reveals fundamental autonomy from God, and knowing the good to do yet failing to do it constitutes sin.
VERSES IN THIS CHAPTER
God is faithful in every circumstance.. Following God is costly, but the reward is eternal.. God is faithful in every ci...
1
From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?
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Following God is costly, but the reward is eternal.. God is faithful in every circumstance.. This connects directly to t...
2
Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.
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3
Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.
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4
Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
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God is faithful in every circumstance.. This connects directly to the promise made to Abraham. I love how this passage d...
5
Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?
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6
But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.
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I love how this passage doesn't shy away from the difficulty of obedience. The promise here is not conditional on our st...
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Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
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God is faithful in every circumstance.. God is faithful in every circumstance.. There's something deeply comforting abou...
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Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.
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Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.
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God is faithful in every circumstance.. Following God is costly, but the reward is eternal.. Their context of persecutio...
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Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.
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11
Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge.
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12
There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?
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13
Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain:
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14
Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.
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15
For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.
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16
But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil.
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God is faithful in every circumstance.. The promise here is not conditional on our strength but on His character.. God i...
17
Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.
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