James 4

James 4:1:
From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?

James 4:2:
Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.

Its not that God cannot intervene to release His provisions without prayer, it's that He won't. It is His sovereign decree that has established prayer as the bridge between the spiritual world--where His word is settled forever and the material world. John Wesley makes this statement: "God will do nothing but in answer to prayer."

James 4:3:
You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.

James 4:4:
You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

"Worldliness is “that system of values, in any given age, which has at its center our fallen human perspective, which displaces God and his truth from the world, and which makes sin look normal and righteousness seem strange. It thus gives great plausibility to what is morally wrong and, for that reason, makes what is wrong seem normal.” David F. Wells, Losing Our Virtue: Why the Church Must Recover Its Moral Vision (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998),

Observing the trend of the churches today as they strive to be “seeker friendly,” we see that the chief means by which the church seeks to accomplish this end is to embrace the world. Does the world love rock music? The church will give them rock music. Does the world love sports? The church will create Christian sports leagues and build ball fields and a sports complex. Does the world love entertainment? The church will install big screens, professional lighting and sound systems, and put on a show. Does the world love its celebrities? The church will build a personality of cult around its gifted speakers, singers, and entertainers.
Of course, those Christians who embrace all the things of the world, declare they are doing so in a quest to be “relevant.” After all, they reason, how will they reach a lost world if they do not appeal to the desires of the world? The problem with this way of thinking is that having drawn worldly people into the church, the seekers find no significant difference inside the church. The church merely presents them with a “cleaned up” version of what they had outside. The church has all the same values of comfort, ease, pleasure, and entertainment; they are presenting a religion that satisfies the soul of man, instead of leading people to the radical change of focus that they need. Mankind apart from Christ is by nature a consumer. He lives to satisfy his natural appetites. This became the state of all men when Adam transgressed in the Garden of Eden. Adam failed to subdue and rule over the beasts (and by extension the beast nature). Adam submitted to the rule of the serpent. Consequently, the curse on the serpent became mankind’s curse. -Billy Holland

James 4:5:
Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?

James 4:6:
But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: “God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble.”

“Humility functions in the fear of the Lord. Such fear makes God large in our eyes. We are completely and continually dependent upon Him. We exist by Him and for Him. We live through Him. In Him we live and move and have our being. The greater the presence of humility in our hearts, the greater we will see ourselves as debtors to grace and the more in awe of God we will be. James tells us that God 'gives more grace,' asserting that 'God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble' (4:6). Humility is a conduit of grace.”
— Stanley Gale; Vine Ripened Life

James 4:7:
Submit yourselves therefore to God. resist the devil, and he will flee from you”

"It is not only that sin consists in doing evil, but in not doing the good that we know."
— —H. A. Ironside (1876-1951)

The most important thing is to submit to God–and that means submitting to the temptation He has allowed. Jesus submitted to being tempted in the wilderness because He knew His Father had a hand in it. Knowing this gave Him resolve and comfort that He was not alone in the battlefield. Many give up, grow discouraged and depressed. They don’t realize that the very reason they are being tempted is because they are making progress.

The Bible very much places the responsibility for whether we succumb to the wiles of the devil on the individual. Unlike a conspiracy in which the victims are helpless against the machinations of the one seeking to control them, Christians are commanded to resist the devil (cf. James 4:7b), not by searching the world for evidence of his manipulative hand, but by learning to say no to temptation and practicing self-control. The weapons of our warfare are love, righteousness and humility, and for those who are in Christ, there is a guaranteed victory when we use the same, for whether or not the whole world conspires against us to bring us down, Christ will save our souls and on the last day raise us up to eternal life. -Jonathan McAnulty; Chapel Hill Church of Christ.

James 4:8:
8 Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.

"This must be understood consistently with the perfection of God's immensity and omnipresence: the saints draw near to God when they present their bodies in his sanctuary; when they tread in his courts, and attend his ordinances...they draw near to him when they come to the throne of his grace, for grace and mercy to help them; when they draw near to him in prayer with true hearts, and lift them up with their hands to God; when in the exercise of faith and hope they enter within the vail, and come up even to his seat, and lay hold on him as their covenant God and Father; and he draws near to them by granting them his gracious presence, by communicating his love to them, by applying the blessings of his grace, by helping them in times of need and distress, and by protecting them from their enemies; the contrary to which is expressed by standing afar off from them. Now this is not to be understood as if men could first draw near to God, before he draws near to them; for as God first loves, so he first moves; he takes the first step, and, in conversion, turns and draws men to himself; though this does not respect first conversion, but after acts in consequence of it; nor is it to be considered as a condition of the grace and favor of God, in drawing near to his people, but is expressive of what is their duty, and an encouragement to it"
--John Gills Commentary

James 4:10:
"Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up."

Humility is oftentimes misunderstood by many. I have come to realize that, it is first of all, a vital state of a man's heart that reflects in everything he or she does. Not always does it have to do with ways of dressing and talking, but more the condition of the human spirit of a person that is established by the Love-effect of the Spirit, and the Holy commandment, to think of oneself not too highly outside the Word-Description of Christian personality.. Believe if we can properly check our hearts, its desires and lusts that do not much up to the Righteousness of God, the Lord will not but elevate us were we ought to be, not just because we belong there, but we more because we please Him in all things, for He hath said "If ye abide in me and My Words abide in you, ye shall ask whatsoever ye will and it shall be done(produced) unto you". Humility is a Godly conditioning of the human spirit by the Word of God, through the energy of the Spirit, to produce works of love in faith.

James 4:9-10:
9 Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.
10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.

James 4:11:
Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge.

Considering a sensorious spirit, James 4:11, you do not act as a fellow servant to him that you judge, or as one that is under the same law with him, but as the giver of the law, and the judge whose province it is to pass sentence under it. --Jonathan Edwards, Charity and Its Fruits.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” James tells us how to avoid sabotaging that noble goal. “Do not speak evil against one another, brothers” (Jas. 4:11).
Speaking evil can be toxic to a relationship, introducing a pollutant that can poison the waters and be difficult to clean up, and even once cleaned up can leave traces that might never be purged. We might think in terms of slander or berating another.
James describes this evil-speak as emanating from someone who has assumed the position of a judge. Jesus also addressed the matter in the Sermon on the Mount when He said, “Judge not, that you be not judged” (Matt. 7:1). -Stan Gale; Aquila Report

James 4:12:
"There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and destroy: who art thou that judgest another?"

Jonathon Edwards compared a sinner without God's grace to a spider with no more than a fragile web keeping him from falling into the fire of hell. Man, by judging God's law, plays at being holier than God. God, the divine lawgiver and judge, is able to save or destroy, and so James concludes with a not-so-subtle question, "Who art thou that judgest another?"

James 4:13:
13 Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain:

Look at this man and you’ll find out what was wrong with him. He left God out of his plans altogether. He’s not consulting with God. He’s not seeking the will of God. He’s like so many here in this auditorium this morning. Your worship life is one thing, your business life is another thing. You’ve divided your life into the secular and the sacred. And so you come to church and worship, and then you plan your life as if there were no God. And the biggest fool is not the man who says there is no God; the biggest fool is the man who says there is a God and then doesn’t live like it. --Adrian Rogers

James 4:14-16:
14 Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.
15 For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.
16 But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil.

James 4:17:
17 Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.

James 4:17 and 1 John 3:21 tell us that if our conscience warns us that we are sinning then we are in sin. Surveys indicate that almost every Christian who practices masturbation and a majority of non-Christians feel guilty over their actions. Counselors try to convince individuals that masturbation is not sin since that is their opinion, but John 16:8 says the Holy Spirit convicts of sin. Is the Holy Spirit tell our consciouses that masturbation is sin?