within you? 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. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us? But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:
“God opposes the proud
but shows favor to the humble.” — James 4:1–6 (NIV)
Wow. This is incredibly harsh. Are James’s readers really guilty of all these awful things?
Not everyone is guilty of all of them. This isn’t a letter to a person; it’s a letter to a church. These behaviors exist.
So, having just explained how our pride can turn even something as wonderful as wisdom into something demonic, James now zooms in on that sin.
What causes fights and quarrels among you? The fruit of pride—covetousness. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight.
Good old commandment #10—the one no one talks about, the one that’s not about outward behavior.
“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.” — Exodus 20:17 (NIV)
This is the inward sin.
Out of sight, out of mind, right?
Not totally. The quarreling makes it visible. Then James digs down to the root.
You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
I don’t get this. The first sentence sounds like the health and wealth gospel, but the second sentence heads in the opposite direction.
Yes, yes, yes. James is trying to teach his audience the correct Christian mindset. They’ve embraced Christianity, but they’re still stuck in the old way of thinking about life.
The whole Christian mindset can be summarized on one word—relax. We need to quit the rat race and let God run His universe. Life is not a competition.
Yeah, everyone acts like life is a competition.
I guess you know that the term “rat race” doesn’t have a Christian origin. It was coined by fighter pilots in the 1930’s to describe “follow-the-leader” exercises. It caught on generally because of the well-known use of mazes to train rats.
Right, but it’s a perfect description of the way people chase after status. The Christian angle is that this is rooted in the sin of pride.
The lesson here is simple but subtle. We need to let our relationship with God be what it should be—the relationship between a created being and its creator. Consider this:
When Christians pray, do we sound like we’re talking to the author of space, time, matter, and energy (not to mention justice, ethics, mathematics, and love)? Or do we sound like we’re talking to Santa Claus?
Definitely Santa Claus.
This isn’t some minor error where we just couch our requests badly. This reflects our misunderstanding of who we are and what our role should be.
And the kicker is that getting this wrong leads to nothing but pain and stress. We’d be a lot better off if we’d just stop trying to shoulder the load of being God. That’s not our job. That’s the point of,
“God opposes the proud
but shows favor to the humble.”
So, you’re saying that God won’t honor self-centered prayer requests?
No, James is saying it.
When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
Seems kind of harsh. Why would God do that?
Not as harsh as almost everything else James has said. If God can clue us into our mistaken attitudes and thus mature us into fully functioning Christians, it’s well worth a little disappointment.
So, this isn’t about getting into heaven; it’s just about Christian maturity, right?
You bet. As with many of the previous passages, this is not a challenge to sola fide. Tomorrow’s passage wraps this up nicely.
