March 8 Daily Devotional

Scripture for Day 67—James 4:1–6

¹ What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? 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! 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"? ⁶ But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble."

Devotional:

In these opening verses of chapter 4, God speaking through James exposes our failure to keep unstained from the world. "What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? 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."

Notice that he uses the word "passions" twice. What that conveys is the strong desire to please one's self. God, speaking through James, does not identify this or that specific desire as wrong and as a mark that someone is worldly. That is what we usually look for though, isn't it? We want a list—"Don't drink, don't chew, don't go with girls who do." But the underlying principle of worldliness is a whole lot deeper. Worldliness is not merely breaking a list of taboos. It is adopting the attitude and approach of the world. It can take many forms—some of them even very religious and respectable. At bottom, worldliness involves putting self at the center of everything.

"What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you?" Now undeniably this applies to wars in the world. But in this text, God is actually talking about conflicts in the church ("among you"). What causes conflicts in the church? The answer is, "Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?" This does not so much mean that your passions fight against each other inside you, although they surely must. But here the emphasis is that all your desires and passions are actually marshaled like an army to fight for you. They’re ready at the drop of a hat to attack anyone who gets in the way of something you want for yourself. We see it in little children when they suddenly want the same toy. It’s the experience that we sometimes candy-coat when we say, "So-and-so really pushes my buttons." It’s the inner bent of putting self at the center—demanding that above all else self must be satisfied—that leads to fighting in the Christian fellowship. This can even happen in the cause of truth and right, but with a worldly attitude. It can cause prolonged conflicts ("wars"). It can cause sudden skirmishes ("quarrels"). They all stem from the same root—worldly self-seeking.

Click here for background on the author of Are You For Real?: Meditations in the Epistle of James for Secret or Family Worship.