James poses a unique challenge for me because I've tried to write about it and teach from it before. It's hard to approach it and not feel like I already know it all. I think about it from a teaching standpoint rather than a learning attitude. I read out of it what others should get from it, not what this dunce needs to receive from it. Teachable moments from that letter usually come stapled to the end of the 2X4 God uses to implant them into my head. Today produced one such teachable moment.
I mused a little on the seeming contrast between Paul's exhortation to faith rather than works in Galatians and James' construction of dead faith apart from works. It would be real easy to chase that rabbit trail and pit one apostle against another. My own version of prophesy sees me becoming either legalistic or licentious should I attempt such a study on so little sleep and prayer. James' instructions concerning the tongue are always easy pickings, but I felt the need to reach above the low hanging fruit today. If I've slacked off my writing for the weekend I should put some real effort into the work today. Because of this I kept on reading past James 3.
With James 4 coming up I expected my "inspiration" to come from verse 4 where James reminds us that friendship with the world is enmity with God. That is always such an awesome, convicting verse. Who can't find some way in which he is betting on the wrong horse in this race? I know I can't. So, looking forward to verse 4, I never even saw verse 3 coming. God was swinging for the fences with His teaching stick, and I leaned into the stroke.
You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.The thing is I've been asking God for a lot lately. I've hinted previously about my current spiritual struggles, and pleading with God seems like a great place to start with fixing things. I've asked God for healing, for renewal, for wisdom, restraint, for all sorts of things, but I've never honestly examined my motives for asking. Even this doesn't really get to the bottom of what's going on. Verses 1 and 2 point to the core issue. James asks "What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you?" and then immediately answers that it is my passions warring within me that cause such things. Boy howdy do I ever have some passions (also translated evil desires, desires for pleasure, and lusts) waging a full scale war within me. They are most certainly at the root of the quarrels and fights going on in my life.
With the physical imprint of this verse raising a welt on my forehead I'm forced to look at what I really want to get out of God renewing my mind and purifying my thoughts. Admittedly I want more peace in my house. I want my marriage to be strengthened by my good behavior rather than weakened through my abysmal thought life. I want my children to honor me, my fellow believers to respect me, and I want my walk to be pure and blameless. All these are good things, but should any of them be my end game? No. Each of these things in its own way is tainted by my pride. I want them, and I ask for them, wrongly. I want to spend them on one passion or another. Even worse, I may just want a little Christian camouflage to cover up the real ugliness that I'm hiding inside. Of course I'm not going to receive the good gifts I ask from God if all I really want to do is drape them as a fig leaf over my nakedness.
James is kind enough to supply a little proper motivation for my prayers just a couple of verses later. He reminds me that God jealously yearns for the spirit he made to dwell in me. That spirit is the new life, the rebirth that came with my salvation. What he yearns so eagerly for is that spirit to burst forth from the dead soil that was the old me and produce sweet, spiritual fruit. He longs for me to honestly exude love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and the hardest one for me: self-control. He longs to see these in me as the outworking of my faith just as James instructed earlier. God desires these things to be produced by the richness of my intimate relationship with him, not because of my desire to impress the world. He wants my faith to demonstrate new life rather than old death. He wants to see the work of Christ being completed in me because "those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires." (Gal 5:24) Would ya look at that; James and Paul are not quite so opposed as I had imagined. Both are instructing me in the exact same lesson. Homerun, God, homerun.
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