“What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you?”
—James 4:1
The language of sin and evil are all but lost in our world today. Our culture is uncomfortable with those words. We are quick to rationalize sin with spin. The problem with this is that when we do this, something very important is lost.
You see, if there is no sin, then there is no need of a saviour. The question James asked is still being asked today: What is the source of the fights and conflicts among us? Why do people kill each other? Why do husbands beat up their wives? Why do friends treat each other so badly? Why do we tend to hurt those we love the most?
James has a lot to say to our 21st century world. He answers his good question in the next verse, “Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have.”
You see, when Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, they became independent creatures cut off from the life of God. From that point forward they began to seek to satisfy their own desires. They also got some new desires they had no use of when God fulfilled all their needs and longings. Now they had the built in desire to be somebody…pride, ego!! They also desired to have security, and they desired to be loved as they once had. In short they entered a struggle to find what they had lost where it does not exist…within themselves and in this world.
The problem is that you can’t satisfy spiritual needs with worldly stuff. And so, our inability to be satisfied leads to frustration and hostility.
James writes, “and so you murder…you covet and you cannot obtain, so you quarrel and fight.”
Frustrated by our inability to create the life we desire, we become willing to hurt and destroy in an effort to meet our self-centred needs. So what is the solution?
Verse 6 gives us the answer, “But He [God] gives more grace.”
You see, in Christ, God has done something for us that we cannot do for ourselves. For those whose faith is in Jesus Christ, He has erased the debt that we inherited from our first parents through His atoning death on the cross, thus giving us a righteous standing before God. In Christ, God is ready and willing to take control of our lives, meet our needs, and grant the repentant sinner abundant life now, and eternal life in Heaven. In other words, everything that was lost in the Garden.
It is when our independence turns to dependence on Christ that He turns our bitter hearts sweet and we receive the grace to stop hurting those we love.
‘Praise be to the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ…amen
