{"id":7220,"date":"2020-10-14T07:26:31","date_gmt":"2020-10-14T12:26:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/wp\/?p=7220"},"modified":"2020-10-14T07:26:36","modified_gmt":"2020-10-14T12:26:36","slug":"james-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/?p=7220","title":{"rendered":"James 4"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions<sup>[<a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=James%204&amp;version=ESV#fen-ESV-30322a\">a<\/a>]<\/sup>are\u00a0at war within you?<sup>[<a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=James%204&amp;version=ESV#fen-ESV-30322b\">b<\/a>]<\/sup>\u00a0<sup>2\u00a0<\/sup>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.\u00a0<sup>3\u00a0<\/sup>You ask and do not receive, because you ask\u00a0wrongly, to spend it on your passions.\u00a0<sup>4\u00a0<\/sup>You adulterous people!<sup>[<a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=James%204&amp;version=ESV#fen-ESV-30325c\">c<\/a>]<\/sup>\u00a0Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?\u00a0Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.\u00a0<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>James accurately described strife among Christians with the terms\u00a0wars and fights. Often the battles that happen among Christians are bitter and severe.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><sup>5\u00a0<\/sup>Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, \u201cHe yearns jealously over the spirit\u00a0that he has made to dwell in us\u201d?\u00a0<sup>6\u00a0<\/sup>But\u00a0he gives more grace. Therefore it says,\u00a0\u201cGod opposes the proud but\u00a0gives grace to the humble.\u201d<sup>7\u00a0<\/sup>Submit yourselves therefore to God.\u00a0Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.\u00a0<sup>8\u00a0<\/sup>Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.\u00a0Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and\u00a0purify your hearts,\u00a0you double-minded.\u00a0<sup>9\u00a0<\/sup>Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.<sup>10\u00a0<\/sup>Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The same Holy Spirit convicting us of our compromise will also grant us the\u00a0grace\u00a0to serve God as we should.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><sup>11\u00a0<\/sup>Do not speak evil against one another, brothers.<sup>[<a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=James%204&amp;version=ESV#fen-ESV-30332d\">d<\/a>]<\/sup>\u00a0The one who speaks against a brother or\u00a0judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge.\u00a0<sup>12\u00a0<\/sup>There is only\u00a0one lawgiver and\u00a0judge, he who is able to save and\u00a0to destroy. But\u00a0who are you to judge your neighbor?\u00a0<sup>14\u00a0<\/sup>yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For\u00a0you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.\u00a0<sup>15\u00a0<\/sup>Instead you ought to say,\u00a0\u201cIf the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.\u201d\u00a0<sup>16\u00a0<\/sup>As it is, you boast in your arrogance.\u00a0All such boasting is evil.\u00a0<sup>17\u00a0<\/sup>So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>James rebuked the kind of heart that lives and makes its plans apart from a constant awareness of the hand of God, and with an underestimation of our own limitations\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"excerpt","protected":false},"author":1168,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","filesize_raw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible-reading"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1168"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7220"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7221,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7220\/revisions\/7221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}