James 4:1-3
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. (Vs. 1-3)
In the previous chapter, James was explaining about the war within our body- the untamed tongue making troubles within us and to the others. In this chapter, James looks into the social life of the believers. People who lust about things are having a false thought in their mind that they are just believing God that HE will provide them ‘everything’.
The greed of the believers is creating things worse even in the church. They agitate among each other causing verbal murder and conflicts. As a follower of Christ, we should possess the quality of containment. Through this passage, James wanted to reinstate the importance of the Sermon on the Mount to the church. As years went on, the church had the bad practice of considering worldly pleasures more important than heavenly happiness.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught about blessedness as being meek, humble, and poor in the spirit. But, the world influenced the church and made them believe about blessedness is desiring more and more than just being happy with what they possess. As a result, their social and spiritual life is affected. Their spiritual focus drifted from heaven to the things of this world. Their ‘prayers’ contained materialistic greed than having the hope about the glory yet to be revealed.
The lust for commodities makes the people compare themselves with others and this creates a heart of rebellion against each other. This rebellion pops up in the church as and when a common task is about to be met. The contradiction of thoughts happens as a result of rebellion.
The attitude or the reason behind the asking to God also matters. The prayer from need and the prayer from rebellion (to show oneself better than others) are different. The shift from a God-loving to a world-loving person can be so gradual that we may not even feel the difference. To identify our relationship status with the LORD, we always have to review what we are including in our prayers. If they contain things that are causing pleasure to us, then we have set the world above the LORD.
