James 4:1-12--Warning Against Worldliness

James 4:1-12 English Standard Version (ESV)
Warning Against Worldliness
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.” 7 Submit yourselves therefore 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 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
11 Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges 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. 12 There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?

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And here it is.  The battle that was laid out in the last chapter with the tongue (remember that there were no chapters or verses originally, it was ll one letter).  James continues to say that we we fight and have divisions is because our "natural man" is at war with the "spiritual man" that God has made us.  These passions, lusts and desires that come from our flesh are at war with God because they want what they want when they want it and the driving force there is for "self" to be in control, to be fed and to be pleased.  We cannot be serving both "self" and God at the same time.  God is jealous God and will share His glory with no one and nothing.  This was the mistake that Satan made when in pride he said that he would be like the Most High.  "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble."

In order to resist the devil who wants us to rebel against God in ever way, we must submit ourselves to God and organize ourselves under His authority in every area of our lives.  There are times though where the Bible will tell us not to fight, but to run because some temptations are so strong that God's advice is to flee and get as far away from them as possible, specifically those of sexual immorality.  What is the weapon that we should use against the devil?  It is none other than than the Word of God--we wield the truth of God's Word and by faith believe its promises to "extinguish the fiery darts of the evil one" (we'll get to this when we get to the book of Ephesians in the near future).

God calls us to draw near to him, to be sanctified (be made holy)--notice the command to be cleansed and to purify ourselves.  This is exactly what the Jews had to do before coming into the presence of God to worship Him in the tabernacle and the temple lest they be struck down for approaching God in a way that showed irreverence and didn't respect God's purity and holiness.  Do we think about how we approach the God or the fact that we carry the Spirit of God inside of us and our hearts should be like the Holy of Holies for Him?

We should be broken and morn over our individual and corporate sin and humbly come before God in a spirit of confession and repentance to ask for our relationship and fellowship to be restored both with God and our fellow brothers and sisters.  We should not wish harm on each other who are saved and we should not use the legal system or the Law of God to inflict harm on each other either.  That's not what it's there for . While the Church is instructed to carry out church disciple for the good of the entire body, it is not something to be used for our own personal disputes.  In these areas we are told to love each other as we love ourselves and even to be willing to let others take advantage of us sometimes trusting that God sees all, knows all, and in the end He will set everything right.  There is only one Judge that every man saved and unsaved must answer to, and it is not us.  Speak the truth in love to each other as you confront sin, call it what it is and help each other seek forgiveness and redemption by faith, but do not let "self" get in the way of the mission of God or try to take the place of God as King or Judge.