5. READ: JAMES 4:1-10
[James 4:1] "What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? [2] You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. 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 is hatred toward God? 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 the spirit He caused to live in us envies intensely?* [6] But He gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble,' [Proverbs 3:34].
[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."
*Verse 5: The words "the spirit He caused to live in us envies intensely" refer to God's creation of man (Genesis 2:7). Because of the fall, man's spirit "envies intensely," but God's grace (verse 6) is able to overcome man's envy. There are two alternative translations of "the spirit He caused to live in us envies intensely." One translation is "that God jealously longs for the spirit that He made to live in us." This means that God jealously longs for our faithfulness and our love (see verse 4). In this case the Scripture referred to may be Exodus 20:4-6, "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate Me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love Me and keep My commandments." The second alternative translation capitalizes "Spirit" and makes Him the subject. It says, "that the Spirit He caused to live in us longs jealously." It is the Holy Spirit Who longs jealously for our full devotion. Each translation is in keeping with the Scripture and does not take away from the meaning in any way.
a. What causes fights and quarrels?
b. What two things keep us from getting what we want?
c. Friendship with the world is what?
d. What will the Lord do to the humble?
