Monday
What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. . . .
Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
(James 4:1-4, 7-10, NIV)
The sinful acts of Adam and Eve that broke the harmonious peace of the Garden of Eden opened the door for evil to enter the human heart. It is now part of the human condition that our hearts are sinful and that we live in a fallen world. Sometimes we do not even know the extent of the sin in our own hearts, as the Psalmist highlights when he prays: “Search me, O God, and know my heart, test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting” (139:23-24).
The Apostle James, in his letter to the Jews who believed in Jesus, is very blunt concerning human behavior. In his analysis, it is human greed and covetousness that cause quarrels and fighting. Today’s verses clearly put the responsibility for conflict and violence in the world on our doorstep. We want what we do not have, we envy those with more than us, we have an insatiable appetite – all these human characteristics cause the destruction of God’s intended shalom.
But James does not describe a hopeless situation. Although we are naturally inclined toward evil, we can submit ourselves to God and, by God’s power, resist the devil. The exciting news is that if we choose to resist Satan, he will flee!
Prayer
Gracious Father, we recognize that it is the sin in our own lives and in the lives of others that causes so much violence and conflict in our world. Help us to see our own sin and enable us to repent of the evil in our lives. Thank you for giving us the ability to resist Satan through your power. Amen.