#DailyDevotion Do We Pray With Idolatry On Our Hearts?
James 4:1-4 1Why is there fighting and quarreling among you? Isn’t it because your cravings for pleasure are fighting in your bodies? 2You want something but don’t get it, and so you murder. And you try to get something, but you can’t lay your hands on it, and so you quarrel and fight. You don’t get things, because you don’t ask for them. 3Or you ask for something but don’t get it because you want it for a wrong purpose – to spend it on your pleasures. 4Adulterous people, don’t you know that to love the world is to hate God? If you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God.
In the last part of chapter three we were talking about jealousy and selfish ambition. James continues that here in chapter four. There apparently was fighting and quarreling among the brothers James was writing. These two emotions and motivations lead to a third, cravings for pleasure or covetousness. Covetousness was the beginning of sin back in chapter one.
Covetousness leads to all sort of sins. First James list murder. I don’t know if people in that congregation actually murdered anyone from covetousness. We know that Ahab coveted Naboath’s vineyard and Jezebel his wife spread rumors Naboath committed idolatry and had him killed so Ahab could seize his property. Breaking the eight commandment, “Don’t bear false witness” is murdering the reputation which may sometimes be even worse having to live with a ruined name for the rest of your life. Then James goes down to “Do not steal” as he says they can’t lay hands on what they want. This then causes a quarrel and a fight.
Then James address the second commandment, “Do not misuse the name of the LORD your God.” They don’t get because they don’t ask for them. To not ask the LORD for something in prayer is breaking the second commandment. Nathan told David in no uncertain terms if he wanted Bathsheba, all he had to have done was ask the LORD and He would have given her to him.(2 Sam. 12:8)
Then James addresses their selfishness. They do ask but still don’t get because they want to get what they receive to spend it on their pleasures. God does not answer selfish prayers. Think about our our LORD Jesus Christ taught us to pray. He didn’t say “my Father,” “my daily bread,” “my trespasses,” “sinned against me,” “lead me,” or “deliver me.” What were Jesus’ “preferred pronouns” in prayer: Our, Thy, and us. The LORD’s Prayer is not a selfish prayer and it is the model for all our prayers.
To be selfish and to covet is to be a friend of the world and an enemy of God. Covetousness is idolatry.(Col. 3.5) Idolatry is to be adulterous for our Husband is Christ. You were made one with him in baptism. To love the world is to hate God. If you are feeling selfish and covet, you make yourself a friend with the world and idol worshiper. Mammon has become your god.
Thanks be to God, Christ gives us his Holy Spirit who purifies our desires and calls us to repentance. He has given us his name so we can pray unselfishly with right motives and receive forgiveness for all our sins and everything we need to support this body and life.
Heavenly Father, continually give us your Spirit so we may pray rightly, with good motives and a right spirit and put aside worship of worldly things. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.