Spend time in prayer and silence with God, asking Him to meet with you and speak to you.
Bible Reading
What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 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. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. You adulteress 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. Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the Spirit He caused to live in us envies intensely? But He gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God, and He will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you doubleminded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up.
– James 4:1-10
Devotion
James now deals with the effect of faith on character. Everything depends on desire. To attempt to satisfy a natural desire without reference to God is futile, and it issues an internal conflict and outward warfare and strife. The divine corrective for this is, first, that God “gives grace to the humble.” In the infinite grace of God there is ample supply to counteract all the forces of evil. Selfish desires lead to war or conflict. This spirit of strife is worldliness. James instructs us to take our desires to the Lord in prayer—to have them satisfied or denied or refined—and then we are to accept the answer from Him. This spirit of humility is godliness. Therefore, we are to submit to God, resist the devil and draw near to God. When we approach God in this kind of way, He will lift us up!
The Big Question
Do you struggle to know and accept God’s will? Do you approach God in the spirit of worldliness? How does God transform our desires to align with His desires for our lives? God promises that if we draw near to Him, He will draw near to us. How do you draw near to God?
Conclude your time in prayer and silence, reflecting on what God revealed to you today.