A LETTER FROM JAMES

Chapter 4 – Part 1

What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Don’t they come from the evil desires at war within you? 2 You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it. 3 And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure. (James 4:1-3 –NLT)

We have no way of knowing if James if addressing problems in a certain church or whether he is dealing with a more general problem in the wider church. Once again he is not pulling any punches and confronting the issues head-on. In the previous chapter, he has confronted some significant failings in a very direct manner and once again he doesn’t mince words and deals with the basic sinful motivation of humanity.

The issue at stake here with the quarrels and fights among you, is basic, human urge, most times selfish, sinful impulses; that we know full well are wrong, Consequently, having that knowledge it creates inner conflict and we are robbed of the inner peace that God wants for us. Much of the inner conflict we encounter arises from whether or not we want to please God, or please ourselves and our own desires. It is here that humanity encounters its fiercest battleground and while ever this battle rages it will rob us of our peace of mind.

In chapter 3 James has confronted his readers’ propensity towards selfishness (See James 3:15), and it is usually at the centre of many of our sinful desires. Throughout New Testament writings selfishness is seen as a barrier to graceful behaviour in the Kingdom of God. When Paul wrote to the Philippian Christians he not only addressed this inner behaviour but also suggested an antidote to it. Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too. (Philippians 2:3-4 - NLT) Focus on our own desires will cause inner conflict and lack of inner peace, focus on the needs of others will take our minds away from our ourselves, and our own selfish desires, and brings peace of mind knowing that we are serving others and doing God’s will.

The line from an old country and western song says: The other man’s grass is always greener, the sun shines brighter on the other side. It confronts one of the basic failures of human nature, always wanting what someone else has, and a scene we visualise through delusional eyes. More often than not we are chasing a phantom, a will of the wisp that we think will make us happy and leave us contented That is part of the delusion, even when we grasp what it was we thought we wanted, more often than not there is a sense of disappointment and emptiness and we look around to see what other delusion we can chase.

We have all met them, people, who will scheme and manipulate to get what it is they are chasing. They will often go to extraordinary lengths, perhaps not to physical murder or waging war, but they will not stop at murdering another’s good name or reputation in pursuit of their objective. They are not beyond initiating a campaign of gossip and slander to tear others down so they can achieve their objective. Sadly, we do find these people among Christian gatherings.

There is within unregenerate humanity a deep-seated sense of dissatisfaction, an emptiness that it is always seeking to fill. Instinctively it knows that somehow, it is incomplete and unfulfilled and so the search goes on for that which it feels will somehow complete it. The abundance of inner-awareness programs, of self-fulfilment gurus and dependence on alcohol and drugs, gives evidence that humanity is searching for a deeper meaning to life. Some have called it a God-shaped blank in our lives.

Tragically, very few are willing to turn to the creator to complete the created. James zeros in on the issue when he says: you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it. To do so requires an admission of weakness and failure. Human pride stoically resists such an admission, and people struggle on trying all sorts of human answers and never really finding real meaning and fulfilment in life.

And even when we get to the point of self-confrontation we are loath to get down to the real issues of tackling human pride and self-deceit. The Message paraphrase puts it this way; You wouldn’t think of just asking God for it, would you? And why not? Because you know you’d be asking for what you have no right to. You’re spoiled children, each wanting your own way. (James 4:1-3 - MSG) In our pride we think we know what’s best for us but the reality only He who created us knows the best for us.

Video meditation: God's New Dawn

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https://youtu.be/grhcBzUzGLs