I was reflecting recently with another minister on an incident that took place within a Church. A woman member entered into such a fight of words with another woman that the Pastor had to open a full investigation into the matter. It took him days and weeks to sort it out. We “will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word.” (Acts 6:4) has been taken over by refereeing what James calls ‘fights and quarrels’. How many Pastors have cut short their prayer time and their preparation for preaching to deal with fights and quarrels? Eugene Peterson calls them ‘appalling wars and quarrels’ and he is right to do so. I don’t have to survey retired Christian leaders to know that on looking back on their ministry life they have had to spend or shall I say wasted so much of their life on sheep biting other sheep.
James is pondering why. He knows why. It is what lies behind the surface. It is the state of our hearts. It has always been and always will be about the state of our heart and whether it is consecrated. Though hidden the heart can be seen, every day, it comes to the surface and it reveals whether it is consecrated. James is sure of this.
“What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 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. 3 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 v 1-4)
A consecrated heart may have unfulfilled desires but they are controlled. The causes for these wars within the Church are not what is based on who is right or wrong. There is a root hidden which is producing such bad fruit. You have heard of righteous wars. Holy wars. Jihad exists in the Church. These wars are the ones that the Holy Spirit apparently has asked us to start. James says they don’t exist. They are started by our own desires which are not controlled. They lead to killing and again we are reminded of the Sermon on the Mount and maybe James does this purposely when Jesus used killing for the condition of the heart displayed in anger (Matthew 5: 21-22). This may seem over the top by James. But he is wanting us to see the utter destruction that takes place when our hearts are not consecrated and our desires are out of control.
A consecrated heart is a praying heart. Whereas the world in its unfulfilled state grabs for its desires the consecrated heart brings its desires to God. We wait before Him with desires unfulfilled and more importantly we bring the reasons for those desires to Him also. What do want? Why do we want them? James will encourage us later in this letter to ask God. He wants us to seek God. He believes in the power of prayer. I wonder how many have not received what God wants to give because instead of asking they have entered into a battle for their rights. How sad to see such immaturity.
A consecrated heart is aligned away from self. How many prayer requests are about you? How many are about God? How many are about others? If you examined your prayer life what would the ratio be? James says prayer is not about asking selfishly for your desires in order to ‘spend what you get on your pleasures.’ Prayer is to align oneself with the will of God and we know His purpose is to love. We already know from James about the royal law of loving God and loving others. Our prayers can be wasted on ourselves and because it is so difficult at times to know whether this desire I have is righteous or not then perhaps it is better to focus more on aligning our lives with God and not getting things from Him?
I remember saying to two Christians who used to walk together but then entered into war with each other, ‘Can you please both go away and hang on the cross for a while.’ They didn’t want to do that. They would rather preach about the cross than hang on it. It didn’t end well.
Missions Paul 