Daily Bible Reading Wednesday 2nd December 2020
James 4:1–5
Warning Against Worldliness
4:1 What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions1 are at war within you?2 2 You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. 4 You adulterous people!3 Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5 Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”?
Footnotes
[1] 4:1
Greek pleasures; also verse 3
[2] 4:1Greek in your members
[3] 4:4Or You adulteresses! (ESV)
Teaching by Rev. William Moody
James continues what he has been teaching about heavenly and earthly wisdom (3 v13-18). Earthly wisdom is controlled by sinful selfish desires that are within us all and it leads to strife (v1-2). A society where people want to grab and grab will lead to tensions.
This pursuit of selfish gain is sad because it never satisfies. There is always a desire for more. People are searching in the wrong place for contentment instead of looking to God and finding it in a right relationship with Him.
What happens often is that people can still have a place for God in their lives but it is only for God to meet their worldly desires and pleasures (v3).
James gets very strong here because having the things of this world as the objects of our affection is spiritual adultery (v4). God takes this very personally and doesn’t ignore it when our affections are in the wrong place (v5). We need to remember that ‘Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.’ God is to be the source of our joy and delight.
In your Christianity do you find real pleasure in God and in Christ Jesus? Take time to pray about this.