God rebukes Christians who seemingly don’t understand what should be our priorities. Have we lost the understanding of how valuable things should be?
James 4:1-2 writes: “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 see, when Christians get into quarrels and fights, something is wrong! And James continues and tells us what is what’s wrong: “You adulterous people! Do you not know that FRIENDSHIP WITH THE WORLD is enmity (“becoming an enemy”) with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God” (James 4:3-4).
In other words, when Christians fight and quarrel it shows that they’ve put a higher value on the world (our possessions) than they have put on God. Christians who fight and quarrel are called “adulterous” because they’ve apparently abandoned their commitment to God for a commitment to the world. We have placed more value, or importance, to what we have: our bank accounts, investments, our house, car—our possessions. The root of quarreling and fighting that James is talking here is based on the fact that too many Christians love their worldly possessions. And when they cling to those possessions, they ultimately abandon God.
By contrast, James 3:17-18 tells us: “the WISDOM FROM ABOVE is first pure, then peaceable, Gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.”
Some people are always arguing about how “their” political party is better than the “other” political party. Sometimes people get fairly obnoxious about this and many have fallen into this trap. So, sometimes we may show an ungodly attitude.
Now this sometimes happens when someone has adopted ideas and attitudes that are not in agreement with God’s Word. Or some people get angry because we choose to glorify God and stand up for what He has said. But Jesus told us that the world will hate us (John 15:19).
Many get mad at Christians because we refuse to accept their ungodly ideas and their “life choices.” Why? Simply because many believe that they have the right to do and act as they please—without regard to what God’s ...