James-04
The Text
Humble yourselves before the LORD
v1
Where do wars and fightings among you come from? Don't they come from your pleasures that war in your members?
v2
You lust, and don't have. You murder and covet, and can't obtain. You fight and make war. You don't have, because you don't ask.
v3
You ask, and don't receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.
v4
You adulterers and adulteresses, don't you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
v5
Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, "The Spirit who lives in us yearns jealously"?
v6
But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble."
v7
Be subject therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
v8
Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners. Purify your hearts, you double-minded.
v9
Lament, mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to gloom.
v10
Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will exalt you.
v11
Don't speak against one another, brothers. He who speaks against a brother and judges his brother, speaks against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law, but a judge.
v12
Only one is the lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge another?
On goals
v13
Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow let's go into this city, and spend a year there, trade, and make a profit."
v14
Whereas you don't know what your life will be like tomorrow. For what is your life? For you are a vapor that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away.
v15
For you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will both live, and do this or that."
v16
But now you glory in your boasting. All such boasting is evil.
v17
To him therefore who knows to do good, and doesn't do it, to him it is sin.
My Notes
- v1: in your members: μέλεσιν means limbs or parts of a body.
- v2: you don't have because you don't ask: What a friend we have in Jesus! We can bring all our cares and concerns to Him and He will hear us and provide generously. Yet he is not some foolish genie who grants wishes. He is not a codependent enabler who gives us what we want rather than what we need. In wisdom, He gives us what we need when we ask Him in the right manner (v3).
My Notes on “Humble yourselves”
- v10: So often I want to lift myself up. I look for happiness but can’t find it. But He will lift me up. I can’t. He must, and He will.