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You are fighting among yourselves because of your evil desires, and you are never getting what you want because you pray with wrong motives.
James 4:1-3
1 ◄Now I will tell you why you are fighting among yourselves and quarreling with each other./Do you know why you are fighting among yourselves and quarreling with each other?► [RHQ] It is [RHQ] because each of you wants to do the evil things that you ◄ enjoy doing/like to do► [PRS]. You keep on wanting to do things that are opposed to what God wants you to do. 2 There are things that you very much desire to have, but you do not get those things, so you want to kill [HYP] those who hinder you from getting them. You desire what other people have, but you are unable to get what you desire, so you quarrel and fight with one another [HYP]. You do not have what you desire because you do not ask God for it. 3 And even when you do ask him, he does not give you what you ask for because you are asking for the wrong reason. You are asking for things in order that you may use them just to ◄enjoy yourselves/make yourselves happy►.
You are unfaithful to God and are behaving as evil people do, so you have become God's enemies, but he wants to help you. He opposes the proud, but he helps those who are humble.
James 4:4-6
4 Like a woman who is unfaithful to her husband, you are being unfaithful to God and not obeying him anymore [MET]. Those who are behaving as evil people do [MTY] (OR, Those who love the evil pleasures of this world) are hostile toward God. Perhaps you do not realize that [RHQ]. So those who decide to act as evil people do [MTY] become enemies of God. 5 ◄Surely you do not think that it is for no reason that God told us in the Scriptures that he eagerly desires that his Spirit, who lives in us, will help us to love God only!/Do you think that it is for no reason that God told us in the Scriptures that he strongly desires that his Spirit, who lives in us, will help us to love God only?► [RHQ] God has a reason for desiring that. 6 It is because he is kind to us and he wants very much to help us. That is why ◄someone said/ King Solomon wrote► in the Scriptures, “God opposes those who are proud, but he helps those who are humble.”
So submit yourselves to God and resist the devil. Stop doing wrong and thinking wrong thoughts. Be sorry for having sinned. Humble yourselves before God, and he will honor you.
James 4:7-10
7 So submit yourselves to God. ◄Resist the devil/Refuse to do what the devil wants►, and as a result he will run away from you. 8 Come near spiritually to God, and as a result he will come near to you. You who are sinners, stop doing what is wrong and do only what is good [SYN, MET]. You who cannot decide whether you will ◄ commit yourselves to God/obey God completely►, stop thinking wrong thoughts, and think only pure thoughts [MTY]. 9 Be sorrowful and weep/mourn [DOU] because of the wrong that you have done. Do not laugh [DOU], ◄ enjoying only what you selfishly/enjoying only what you yourselves► desire. Instead, be sad because you have done what is wrong. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and as a result he will honor you.
Stop speaking evil against one another and thus condemning each other. Only God has the right to condemn people.
James 4:11-12
11 My fellow believers, stop speaking evil against one another, because those who speak evil against a fellow believer and thus condemn one who is like a brother to them are really speaking against the law that God gave us to obey. In this law, God commanded [MTY] us to love others, and those who speak evil against fellow believers, it is as though they are saying by what they do that we do not have to do what God commanded. If you (sg) say that you do not have to do what God commanded, you (sg) are not obeying God's law. Instead, you (sg) are claiming that you have the authority to condemn others. 12 But in fact, there is only one who has the authority to tell people what is right to do and to condemn them, and that is God. He alone is able to save people or to destroy people. So, ◄you (sg) certainly have no right to decide how God should punish other people./who are you to decide how God should punish other people?► [RHQ]
You should not boast about what you will do in the future, because life is transitory. Instead, you should plan to do whatever God wants you to do, because boasting about what you want to do, rather than considering the will of God, is sinful.
James 4:13-17
13 Some of you are arrogantly saying, “Today or tomorrow we will go to a certain city. We will spend a year there and we will buy and sell things and earn a lot of money.” Now, you listen to me! 14 You should not talk like that, because you do not know what will happen tomorrow, and you do not know how long you will live! Your life is short [MET], like a mist that appears for a short time and then disappears. 15 Instead of what you are saying, you should say, “If the Lord wills/desires, we will live and do this or that.” 16 But what you are doing is boasting about all the things that you arrogantly plan to do. Your boasting like that is evil.
17 So if anyone knows the right thing that he should do, but he does not do it, he is sinning.

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© 2008-2016 Ellis W. Deibler, Jr.