James 4:1-10
What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your
desires that battle within you? 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. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask
with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. 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. 5 Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he
jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us? 6 But he gives us more
grace. That is why Scripture says:
“God opposes the proud
but shows favor to the humble.
7 Submit
yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from
you. 8 Come
near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you
sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Grieve, mourn and wail.
Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before
the Lord, and he will lift you up.
“The more I considered Christianity, the more I found that while it had established a rule and order, the chief aim of that order was to give room for good things to run wild. -G.K. Chesterton