Pride Promotes Strife
1 Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? 2 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. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures. 4 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. 5 Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”? 6 But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: “God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble.”
Humility Cures Worldliness
7 Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.
These are very sobering words. I don't think I can add anything or make it any clearer than it already is. Luke 8:18 says: "Therefore consider carefully how you listen." So, please consider carefully what the Spirit is saying through these verses. May the kindness of our God pour out His Grace as you submit in humility.
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1 comment:
thanks helen for your reflection. these are indeed very sobering words-they really make us squirm. verse 5 was deeply convicting when it says, "the Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously". God is so opposed to the sin and pride and worldliness within us because He yearns "jealously" for our purity of heart. He cannot be content with anything less.
i was also convicted by verses 7-10 which gives us specific commands if we want to be restored to God--james tells us to SUBMIT ourselves, RESIST the devil, DRAW near to God, CLEANSE our hands, PURIFY our hearts, MOURN over our sins--in other words, HUMBLE ourselves before the Lord. we often think that being restored to God is all up to God, but this passage reminds us that THERE ARE THINGS WE MUST DO AND CAN DO to make this happen.
thank God that our Lord Jesus "will in no ways cast out" or ever refuse a person who is willing to do them.
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