Devotional: James 4:1-12

Reflection

• (Jas 4:1 ESV) What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?
• (Jas 4:2 ESV) 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.
• (Jas 4:3 ESV) You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.
• (Jas 4:4 ESV) You adulterous people! 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.
• (Jas 4:5 ESV) 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”?
• (Jas 4:6 ESV) But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
• (Jas 4:7 ESV) Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
• (Jas 4:8 ESV) Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
• (Jas 4:9 ESV) Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.
• (Jas 4:10 ESV) Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
• (Jas 4:11 ESV) Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge.
• (Jas 4:12 ESV) There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?

Discussion

Many things can overshadow the peace we should experience in Christ.  First and foremost is our selfishness, our pride.  We are created to honor and glorify God, but our human nature drives us to seek glory for ourselves instead.  It can be a struggle, sometimes daily, to remember that all the abilities we have, all the good things we have, all the freedom we have is all from God by His grace and not truly a work of our own effort.

Connection

How have you struggled with deferring attention on yourself and directing that toward God?

What has helped you along the way in that process?

How do you “draw near to God”?

Expansion

Salvation and Preservation

God saves people by their faith in Him alone according to His grace alone through the redemptive work of Jesus Christ alone, not on the basis of any human work.  All of the redeemed are immediately indwelt by the Holy Spirit and justified before God beginning the transforming sanctification of the whole person the fruit of which is shown by their attitude and conduct.  Having been saved by faith, we are justified in Christ before God, forgiven of our sins, and held eternally secure by Christ alone forever where we will one day assume a glorified condition with Him forever.  From beginning to end the salvation of people is entirely a work of God to bring glory to His name.

Acts 8:27-30, Ephesians 1:3-14, Ephesians 2:1-10, 2 Timothy 1:8-9, 2 Timothy 2:24-26, John 1:12-13, Romans 6:16-18, Romans 9:10-24, John 6:43-45, 1 Timothy 2:3-4, Ezra 18:23, Romans 10:10-21, 2 Peter 3:9, John 12:32, Romans 14:10-12