October 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. Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God,” James 4:1-4.
The apostle James addressed his Epistle to the Jewish Christians who were dispersed from the Jerusalem territory during days of persecution. They had to flee with as many of their few possessions as they could carry as they escaped. Fleeing for safety was a way of life for many of the early Christians. But it did not end in their day. We think of the many Christians who have fled for safety in every generation, including the present day. We think of the many Christians who were and still are persecuted in countries controlled by ungodly Communist governments. Christians are also persecuted and killed in countries where hate-filled Islamics run rampant.
Now, one would think that the early Christians would assemble with other dispersed Christians and live and be at peace among themselves. However, that was not the case. James raises some conscience-piercing questions! “Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members?” While James was addressing dispersed Christian Jews, he testifies to the fact that they still had their inherited sinful natures. And many times that sinful nature was in the driving seat.
James adds, “You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war.” The lust for power, money, and pleasure move people to kill and covet, to fight and go to war. Today, the world is at war, and many world leaders are talking primarily about getting together to discuss the weather! Perhaps none of them know – or if they do know, they do not have the courage to tell others – in whose hands the weather rests. God, through Moses, recorded, “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease,” Genesis 8:22.
The apostle points to a spiritual problem. “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.” Their prayer life was in trouble. James says that in some instances, they did not have because they did not pray. In other instances, they prayed, but they did not receive because they did not pray properly. Often when they went through the formality of praying, they were thinking only of having things to enjoy in this life.
James adds the piercing words: “Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” Some of those to whom the Epistle is addressed were ready to give up their Christianity and live like the children of the world. The apostle John speaks on this same topic: “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world – the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life – is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever,” 1 John 2:19-17.
And what is the will of God? Jesus said, “This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life,” John 6:40. When the jailer at Philippi asked the apostles, “What must I do to be saved?” he was not given a long list of good works which he had to perform to get to heaven. Rather, he was told, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household,” Acts 15:31.
Heavenly Father, increase our faith in Jesus as our Savior and move us to live Christian lives!