Read James 4:1-3
What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. (James 4:1-3)
Quarrelling in the family, quarrelling in the workplace, quarrelling in the organization, quarrelling in the church – these situations are all too familiar. “We do not want our daughter to marry this man.” “This contract should not be signed as we do not make enough profit.” “She will not make a good chairperson as she is not firm enough.” All the above may be strongly held opinions and sometimes they may be valid. However they can also cause disagreement and possibly heated arguments. If this is the case, then the individuals or the group may be continuing their heated discussion “without asking God”. When we give our opinion or make a proposal at a meeting, we need to seek God’s guidance before opening our big mouths. When we promote our own selfish desires and refuse to admit that we may be mistaken, we must expect disagreement and unfortunately, even in church circles, quarrelling and ill feeling.
We must pray to God with the right request and for the right reason. When we pray, we should do so either “in the name of Jesus” or “for the sake of Jesus”. If we are asking for anything we must believe that it is a request that Jesus Himself would make – because we are asking “in His name”. Also we should ask for the right reason. We are praying for a young girl who has leukemia. We are desperately sorry for her parents and so we pray earnestly for her healing. This is good, but the real reason that we want her to be healed is for the sake of Jesus, who loves the child so much.
Sometimes we believe that we are making the right request for the right reason – the conversion of our parents as an example. At present they are still unsaved. God is Sovereign and so we leave them in His hands and continue to ask.
Let us ask for discernment so that we can make the right requests for the right reason.
This meditation is extracted from “Transformation from Belief to Behaviour: 39 Lenten Meditations on the Letter of James” by Peter Young and used with permission by the author. It may be used solely for personal, noncommercial, and informational purposes. Republication or redistribution of this devotional is prohibited.
