April 3, 2019 – James 4:1-2

What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Don’t they come from the evil desires at war within you? You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it. James 4:1-2.

Then He asked them, “But who do you say I am?”  Peter replied, “You are the Messiah.”  Mark 8:29.  It is when we know who Jesus is, our lives begin to change.   Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.”  John 14:6.

Jesus is the Son of God, the Creator, our Redeemer, our Friend, the Messiah, the Lamb, the Shepherd, the Door, the Light, the Way, and the Truth.  The world says, ‘Love yourself.’   Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’  This is the first and greatest commandment.  A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  Matthew 22:37-39.

This love stills the desire to seek our pleasures and wants. Trust in the Lord and do good.Then you will live safely in the land and prosper. Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you your heart’s desires.  Psalm 37:3-4.

 I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in Him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.  Romans 15:13.

And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure. James 4:3.