James 4 | Scripture

I wrote a testimony about this chapter recently. Here is my interpretation of the scripture based on that testimony. This is the NIV translation.

Submit yourself to the Lord

1 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? Some of the causes for inner fights are: Insecurity, Pride, Fear, Indecisiveness, double mindedness and focus on self.

2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. Instead of asking God to help you see your special purpose, you desire to be like others. You seek man's approval instead of God's. You desire to be more like others, instead of more like Jesus. Your misdirection kills & destroys the gift that God specifically planted in you. Seeking to put yourself first also damages your relationships with others. 

3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. Instead of asking him to help you get closer to him by a love of prayer or love for his word or discernment, you ask God for other things. Usually those requests are meant to make life more comfortable for you. Drawing closer to God is not always comfortable. However, his glory and your peace are found in those things that bring our discomfort for the Lord.

4 You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. We are adulterous for loving people and things in the world more than God.

5 Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us? Do you think that scripture lies? Do you believe that you were really born to desire what others have, instead of the gift or life that God created? We are designed to crave the spirit within us more than anything else. We just misread the signal and try to fill that craving with everything else but God. Scripture tells you what your heart yearns to know. 

6 But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.” if we seek him first. If we recognize how wrong our motives are and just ask him to heal our unbelief, to hear our hearts, to open our eyes, even if we don't think that we need it. He will help us. He will rise up within us and meet us where we are.

7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Challenge yourself to draw closer to God.  It will be hard because the devil will attack you with thoughts that will make you want to give up and with tests that are meant to derail you. Focus on the Lord every way that you know how and don’t give up. Eventually, when the devil realizes within each battle that you won’t give up, he will flee.  (Until the next decision that you make for the Lord)

8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Cleanse your life by changing your habits. Make some radical changes designed to draw you closer to God. Don’t think about what you want or what others want.  Choose God. Choose Life. He will come to you in return.

9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. To crucify flesh is a painful process. Drawing closer to God is not a simple process. It’s not all joyful either but glory is in the other side.

10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. When you are willing to face yourself and your flaws and hand them over one by one to God, he can do something with you. He will convict you of the changes that you need to make in your personal life that will bring you true joy.

11 Brothers and sisters, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against a brother or sister or judges them speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it.  God made each of us with a purpose. We are each full of sin and none of us are better/worse than another. We should stop comparing ourselves, lives, things etc. Instead encourage each other. Pray for each other. Pray and encourage yourself as well. When you sit in judgment of the law, you’re attempting something that is only God’s right.

12 There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor? Don’t forget where you came from.

Boasting About Tomorrow

13 Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” You will schedule things so tightly that you aren’t available to God’s plan. You will wear yourself out. You will not enjoy what God offers or the intent of life because you are too exhausted by your plans.

14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. You simply do not know what will come of tomorrow. Life is fleeting. Do not waste it.

15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” Seek him first.  Don’t be afraid to not commit to things. Sometimes God has last minute plans. Being available to those, will bring greater joy.

16 As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. Again, you do not know what tomorrow brings.

17 If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them. Sin isn’t just doing what is wrong. It is also not doing what is right.