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Daily Bible Reading (Monday, November 6th)

3

James 4 (ESV)

 

Warning Against Worldliness

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions[a] are at war within you?[b] 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 ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people![c] Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

11 Do not speak evil against one another, brothers.[d] The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. 12 There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?

Boasting About Tomorrow

13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— 14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. 17 So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

Footnotes:

  1. James 4:1 Greek pleasures; also verse 3
  2. James 4:1 Greek in your members
  3. James 4:4 Or You adulteresses!
  4. James 4:11 Or brothers and sisters

3 Comments

What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.
Thanks be to God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ for because through the living and enduring word of God we have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable. For,
“All people are like grass,
and all their glory is like the flowers of the field;
the grass withers and the flowers fall,
but the word of the Lord endures forever.”

I am in total agreement with pastor...so much to take note of. In light of this recent horrific mass shorting in Sutherland Springs, I take to heart verses 1-2a....for an unbeliever, we are not surprised. For a believer, again, maybe not as surprised but understandably so...verses 5 and 6 sheds astonishing light...thank you Jesus!

"You do not have, because you do not ask." There is much in this chapter to take note of but this quote stands out to me. We believe in God's grace. We believe in His power. We believe He is a loving Father. Yet we seem hesitant to ask Him for the things He says He will give if we would only ask. I guess it comes down to faith. Do we really believe what He says? Are we so proud that we won't ask for what we need from Him. This is something I plan to chew on throughout this day.

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