Jame 4:1-6

[clark thompson]

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James 4:1-6

New King James Version (NKJV)

 
Pride Promotes Strife

4 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."

New King James Version (NKJV)
The Holy Bible, New King James Version Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.


These are my thoughts please share yours.

1 It is common when people don't get along or want something someone else has the fight or countries go to war. People are prone to caos. We as believers go thru a war with our own flesh as well as the evils of this world.

2 The human flesh goes after what it wants and is able to do very evil things. All we have to do is seek God to give us what we want and turn to Him after turning to Him what we want will change into what He wants for us.

3 We need to come to God with a humble heart and we need to have faith He will answer our prayers. it is common for people to seek their own pleasure and not to seek to please God, this even happens with the believers at times.

4 We can not to live in the world and live with God as well. "we can not serve to masters". To love the world is to hate God.

5 God is a jealous. God being second place or tied for first is not good enough. The same Spirit of God lives within the believers to move them into God's will for their lives. The Spirit makes us more like God because th Spirit is God. Having the Spirit means the Spirit leads us to put God first in our lives. Putting God first is the first thing to do to be in the likeness of our Lord. Our flesh is fallen but the Spirit in us is of God and is to make us after God's likeness instead of after the likeness of the flesh.

6 God'sgrace is theonly means for us to have salvation with Him. It was by grace that Christ died in our place. Prov 3:34
One has to humble themselves for salvation. Believers are not to proud in themselves but in what the Lord has done for them and thru them, the Lord gets the credit. Pride is something that keeps most from the Lord and from salvation.



Better to be a servant of the King than to be a king in hell.

[JB Horn]

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HCS
Proud or Humble
1 What is the source of the wars and the fights among you? Don't they come from the cravings that are at war within you? 2 You desire and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. You do not have because you do not ask. 3 You ask and don't receive because you ask wrongly, so that you may spend it on your desires for pleasure. 4 Adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? So whoever wants to be the world's friend becomes God's enemy. 5 Or do you think it's without reason the Scripture says that the Spirit He has caused to live in us yearns jealously? 6 But He gives greater grace. Therefore He says: God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

I'm attaching the HSC translation of the verses because I find it easier to understand. This advice is being given to believers in the Jewish Christian community. It is very timely for today as the membership of our churches war with each other because of their pride and earthly desires. Remember the sin that brought down Satan.

The membership of the church seems to be continually at war with each other, not only interdenominational but also individually between members.

This is one reason I like the Calvinist view on God's grace and his sovereignty. They understand that they've earned nothing, they deserve nothing, and are incapable of accomplishing anything on their own. It makes it very hard for two Calvinist to make claims of a higher standing or being more righteous in God's eyes.

[Zant Law]

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Remember the sin that brought down Satan.

Isa 14:12 Shining morning star, how you have fallen from the heavens! You destroyer of nations, you have been cut down to the ground. 13 You said to yourself: "I will ascend to the heavens; I will set up my throne above the stars of God. I will sit on the mount of the [gods'] assembly, in the remotest parts of the North. 14 I will ascend above the highest clouds; I will make myself like the Most High." 15 But you will be brought down to Sheol into the deepest regions of the Pit.

Submit to wrong rather than engage in quarreling

 Mat 5:39 But I tell you, don't resist an evildoer. On the contrary, if anyone slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. As for the one who wants to sue you and take away your shirt, let him have your coat as well.

1Co 6:7 Therefore, it is already a total defeat for you that you have lawsuits against one another. Why not rather put up with injustice? Why not rather be cheated?

Gen 13:8 Then Abram said to Lot, "Please, let's not have quarreling between you and me, or between your herdsmen and my herdsmen, since we are relatives.


Reason

Eph 4:3 diligently keeping the unity of the Spirit with the peace that binds [us].