James 4
4
Give Yourselves to God
1Do you know where your fights and arguments come from? They come from the selfish desires that make war inside you. 2You want things, but you do not have them. So you are ready to kill and are jealous of other people. But you still cannot get what you want. So you argue and fight. You do not get what you want because you do not ask God. 3Or when you ask, you do not receive because the reason you ask is wrong. You want things only so that you can use them for your own pleasures.
4So, you people are not loyal to God! You should know that loving the world is the same as hating God. So if a person wants to be a friend of the world, he makes himself God’s enemy. 5Do you think the Scripture means nothing? It says, “The Spirit that God made to live in us wants us for himself alone.”# These words may be from Exodus 20:5. 6But God gives us even more grace, as the Scripture says,
“God is against the proud,
but he gives grace to the humble.” Proverbs 3:34
7So give yourselves to God. Stand against the devil, and the devil will run away from you. 8Come near to God, and God will come near to you. You are sinners. So clean sin out of your lives. You are trying to follow God and the world at the same time. Make your thinking pure. 9Be sad, cry, and weep! Change your laughter into crying. Change your joy into sadness. 10Humble yourself before the Lord, and he will honor you.
You Are Not the Judge
11Brothers, do not say bad things about each other. If you say bad things about your brother in Christ or judge him, then you are saying bad things about the law he follows. You are also judging the law he follows. And when you are judging the law, you are not a follower of the law. You have become a judge! 12God is the only One who makes laws, and he is the only Judge. He is the only One who can save and destroy. So it is not right for you to judge your neighbor.
Let God Plan Your Life
13Some of you say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to some city. We will stay there a year, do business, and make money.” 14But you do not know what will happen tomorrow! Your life is like a mist. You can see it for a short time, but then it goes away. 15So you should say, “If the Lord wants, we will live and do this or that.” 16But now you are proud and you brag. All of this bragging is wrong. 17And when a person knows the right thing to do, but does not do it, then he is sinning.
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Copyright © 2015 by Tommy Nelson™, a Division of Thomas Nelson, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
James 4
4
Friendship with the World
1From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? 2Ye 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. 3Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts. 4Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. 5Do ye think that the Scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth#4.5 dwelleth. Some early manuscripts have he made to dwell. in us lusteth to envy? 6#Prov 3.34. But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith,
God resisteth the proud,
but giveth grace unto the humble.
7Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double-minded. 9Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. 10Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.
Judging a Brother
11Speak 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. 12There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?
Boast Not of Tomorrow
13 #
Prov 27.1. Go to now, ye that say, Today or tomorrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: 14whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. 15For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that. 16But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil. 17Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.
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King James Version 1611, spelling, punctuation and text formatting modernized by ABS in 1962; typesetting © 2010 American Bible Society.