God Speaks
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?
13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— 14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. 17 So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.
Source: BibleGateway.com
We Respond
You, O LORD, are the only one who has the correct perspective and the right to diagnose the cause of the social turmoil of my culture, especially among Your people. You say that it is our inner passions, our evil desires. We are coveting what others have, even to the point of murdering their reputation. When I pray, I may (knowingly or not) be asking with wrong motives. Sometimes, I’m just trying to fit in with the “cool people.” to be a friend of the world, yet this chapter says that to be a friend of the world is to be an enemy of God. But You have put Your Spirit within me to give me grace, if I humble myself and submit to You. Then, You promise that I will be able to resist the devil, and he will flee from me. I’m determined to draw near to You so that You will draw near to me. I wash my hands in the soul-cleansing blood of Jesus. I purify my heart and mind with the clean water of the Word of God. I am truly sorry for my sins. Don’t let me judge anyone else. You are the only one who knows all of the facts and implications. Only You, Lord God are able to judge correctly and save or destroy with proper judgment. Only You know the future and the right thing to do. I so often sin by not carrying through on Your directions. The only thing I can do (in regard to that and any other sin) is to admit it and claim the grace and forgiveness made available to me by the suffering and death of Jesus on my behalf on the cross. AMEN