The reason for fights and quarrels
4
📚From where do conflicts and fights among you come? Do they not come from your desires that are at war in your members? 2 📚You desire and do not have; you kill, and desire 📖 to have, and cannot obtain what you want; you fight and struggle, yet you do not have, because you do not ask God. 📖 Wrong motive in prayer
3 📚You ask, and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, that you may use it up on your desires.
4:3 Notice carefully why God sometimes does not answer prayer, and what is meant by wrong motives. God does not always give us what we ask for because, if He did, it would only make us more selfish, and worse in every way. A desire for selfish pleasure is often the reason why people ask for things. We should not blame God if He does not give them. God is not like some foolish parents who give whatever a child wants whether it is good for him or not. Let us open our hearts to God and sincerely pray as He wants us to pray (Ps 139:23-24; 66:18; Matt 6:9-13).⚜
The world is opposed to God
4 📚You adulterers and adulteresses 📖, don’t you know that the friendship of the world is enmity toward God? Therefore whoever wants to be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
Humility and submission toward God
5 📚Do you think that the Scripture says in vain, The spirit that dwells in us desires jealously?
4:5 The Greek here is very difficult. It could be translated in several different ways. For example, besides the above translation it could mean – “God jealously longs for the spirit He has made to live in us”, or “The Spirit (the Holy Spirit) He caused to live in us longs jealously”. In any case, James is saying that in spite of what men are by nature, God can enable us by His grace to renounce the world and draw near to Him (vs 6-8), and this is what God desires. God is a “jealous” lover of our spirits and wants us for Himself. See Ex 20:5; 34:14; Deut 4:24; 5:9; 6:15; Josh 24:19. “My child”, He says to each of us, “give me your heart”.⚜
6 📚But he gives more grace. Therefore he says,
God resists the proud 📖,
but gives grace 📖 to the humble 📖.
Resisting the devil and its result
7 📚Therefore submit 📖 yourselves to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee 📖 from you.
How to come to God
8 📚Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse 📖 your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts 📖, you double-minded 📖.
4:8 This is another great promise we can always count on, if we come to God in the manner he tells us to come. Compare Zech 1:3.⚜
9 📚Grieve and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to gloom.
4:9 Matt 5:4; Luke 6:21; 2 Cor 7:8-10. James is speaking of sorrow for sin. God does not draw near to bless those who take sin lightly. How long should our grief and mourning continue? Until we know that God has drawn near, forgiven us, and lifted us up. We must do a thorough work of repenting (Jer 29:13).⚜
10 📚Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will lift you up.
4:10 Verse 6; Luke 1:52; 1 Sam 2:7-8; Ps 15:1, 3; 50:20; Prov 10:18; Matt 15:19; 23:12; Eph 4:31; Col 3:8.⚜
Judging is not the Christian’s job
11 📚Do not speak evil 📖 about one another, brethren. He who speaks evil of his brother, and judges his brother, is speaking evil of the Law, and judging the Law. But if you judge the Law, you are not a doer of the Law, but a judge. 12 📚There is one lawgiver 📖, who is able to save and to destroy 📖. Who are you that judges another 📖?
Boasting about tomorrow
13 📚Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into a certain city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and make a profit”.
4:13 Here is another very common fault even among Christians. Some make their plans as if God were not important to them, as if they were perfectly able to carry on their affairs without His guidance and help.⚜
14 📚The fact is you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away.
4:14 Compare Jam 1:10-11; Job 7:7; Ps 39:5; 102:3; 144:4; Prov 27:1; 1 Pet 1:24; Luke 12:16-20. We do not know what natural calamity may come tomorrow, or what accident may befall us, or whether tomorrow is our last day on earth.⚜
15 📚Instead you ought to say 📖, “If the Lord wills, we will live, and do this, or that”. 16 📚But now you boast 📖 in your arrogant presumption. All such boasting is evil. 17 📚Therefore to him who knows to do good, and does not do it, to him it is sin.
4:17 Luke 12:47; John 9:41; 2 Pet 2:21. They may have been acting as they did in ignorance, but now they would know the right way to behave and can have no excuse. Observe that good left undone is sin just as evil done is sin. Compare Num 32:23; 1 Sam 12:23; Matt 25:41-46.⚜