“What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? 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. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. 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.
“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’? But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’ Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.” (James 4:1-10 ESV)
We, as followers of Jesus Christ, are not to be selfish people, thinking only of ourselves and what we want when we want it regardless of who gets hurt in the process. But sadly many who profess the name of Jesus are living just like that, largely because they are being given permission to live like that from those who are teaching a diluted and altered character of God/Christ and of his gospel and of his church, the body of Christ. And the other reason is because they prefer their sin over a genuine relationship with Christ.
Now, what we need to understand here is, although we are not perfect people, and we will not be perfect (complete) until Jesus returns and he takes his faithful ones to be with him for eternity (which is when our salvation is complete, if we continue in him until the end), we as followers of Jesus Christ are to be holy, set apart by and for God and for his service and different (unlike) the world because we are being made to be like Jesus in character, heart, mind, and in actions, by the Spirit.
So we are not to be all about self and the flesh and the desires of the flesh, but we are to be about loving God and our fellow humans and showing them kindness and goodness and the kind of (agape) love that God has for us. And rather than fighting and quarreling with one another so that we can have our own way, we should be desiring our Lord and his ways and loving other humans as we ought to love, and as we want to be loved by them, which should be a love which prefers what God prefers.
But what we need to understand here is that when we act selfishly, in practice, and when we choose to devour one another, rather than show one another love and kindness, and when we choose to stomp on one another in order to get our own way, and so we hate and kill and slander and cheat and lie and do all sorts of evil to others, we either don’t know the Lord at all, which is what the Scriptures teach, or we are living in adultery against him, and so we have made ourselves enemies of God.
For we can’t live like the devil and live for the Lord, too. The two don’t mix. For if we choose to be on friendly terms with the world of sin, and not with God, we are at enmity with God. Thus God opposes the proud but he gives grace to the humble. And what is grace? It is the Lord’s kindness, his favor to us. And what is that favor? Jesus died on that cross that we might die with him to sin and be raised with him to walk in newness of life in him, no longer as slaves to sin but as slaves to God and to his righteousness.
For the grace of God instructions (trains) us to renounce (say “No!” to) ungodliness and worldly passions (lusts) and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives while we wait for our Lord’s return. For Jesus Christ gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works, the good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them as his workmanship (see Titus 2:11-14; Ephesians 2:10).
Therefore, we are to submit ourselves to God as Lord of our lives. We are to surrender our all to him to be his possession to be used of him for his purposes and glory and not for sinful pleasure. And we are to resist the devil, and he will flee from us, perhaps not immediately, but as we persist in resisting him and in surrendering our lives to the Lord and to his service. But the devil won’t give up, so he will keep trying to get us back, so we need to keep resisting, and keep drawing near to our Lord in walks of obedience.
And we are to die daily to sin and to self and follow our Lord in obedience to his commands and according to his will and plan for our lives. And this requires that we, by the Spirit, are daily putting to death the misdeeds of the flesh and that we are now walking in obedience to our Lord in holy living. And we are not to be double-minded, vacillating back and forth like on a teeter-totter, one minute claiming we are on track with God while the next we are back living in sin.
But we are to be humble people of God who mourn and weep over sin and all that is evil and who call on the Lord for the deliverance of other humans from their slavery to sin so that they can now walk in holiness and in righteousness, too. For we should be people of compassion who care about the hurting and the lonely and the forgotten, but also about those who are trapped in sin’s deceitfulness. And we should pray for their deliverance. And we should be speaking the truth in love to one another, for the lies abound!
[Matthew 7:21-23; Luke 9:23-26; John 1:12-13; John 6:44; Romans 2:6-8; Romans 6:1-23; Romans 8:1-14; Romans 12:1-2; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10,19-20; 2 Corinthians 5:15; Galatians 5:16-21; Galatians 6:7-8; Ephesians 2:8-10; Ephesians 4:17-32; Ephesians 5:3-6; Titus 2:11-14; Hebrews 10:23-31; Hebrews 12:1-2; 1 Peter 2:24; 1 Jn 1:5-10; 1 Jn 2:3-6; 1 Jn 3:4-10]
Oh, to Be Like Thee, Blessed Redeemer
Lyrics by Thomas O. Chisholm, 1897
Music by W. J. Kirkpatrick, 1897
Oh, to be like Thee! blessèd Redeemer,
This is my constant longing and prayer;
Gladly I’ll forfeit all of earth’s treasures,
Jesus, Thy perfect likeness to wear.
Oh, to be like Thee! full of compassion,
Loving, forgiving, tender and kind,
Helping the helpless, cheering the fainting,
Seeking the wandering sinner to find.
O to be like Thee! lowly in spirit,
Holy and harmless, patient and brave;
Meekly enduring cruel reproaches,
Willing to suffer others to save.
O to be like Thee! while I am pleading,
Pour out Thy Spirit, fill with Thy love;
Make me a temple meet for Thy dwelling,
Fit me for life and Heaven above.
Oh, to be like Thee! Oh, to be like Thee,
Blessèd Redeemer, pure as Thou art;
Come in Thy sweetness, come in Thy fullness;
Stamp Thine own image deep on my heart.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrYhiK2nQBg
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