James 4
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.