Pride Produces?

This week as we explore the first half of James 4 we are faced with a painful truth... 

That is that the source of all of our problems, the source of all of our wars, and all of our suffering, is not from an outside enemy rather from within us... 

James says: "What is the source of wars and fights among you? Don’t they come from the cravings that are at war within you? You desire and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and don’t receive because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your evil desires."

Reading this I am drawn back to James 1 when he tells us that "each person is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed by his own evil desires. Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is fully grown, it gives birth to death." 

James is bringing his readers back to this principal he introduce earlier reminding them that the source of our temptations is our "own evil desires" here in chapter 4 James is expanding this concept to say that nothing less than our own sinful pride is what causes fights among us... 
Human nature is that we naturally want to shift the blame for our mistakes... We can do no wrong... It's always the other person... Always the other church... Often we wrongly even seek to blame Satan for our failures... 

But James is saying hold on a second... You don't have because you don't ask, and when you do ask you don't get what you are asking for not because God doesn't love you but because you are asking with the wrong motives... you are seeking to glorify yourself not God... 

We know that based on God's word world peace isn't going to happen till  Christ returns and sets things right but there can be peace among believers and we can be the instruments of peace in our families, churches, communities... 

How? By recognizing the principle in which James is teaching and applying it to our lives... 

We must avoid allowing pride to sneak in and destroy us from within!

Let's be peacemakers today! 

See ya Sunday!