James 4

The wisdom that comes from above is a gift of God. Without that gift we will not live the heavenly life on earth today. There is another alternative. We can live the normal life of worldliness that fits in so well with this place of sin and misery. This alternative is the way of quarreling and fights among people who should not be treating each other like enemies.

When there are passions at war within a person, that internal hostility can easily be expressed in negativity and hatred toward others. It all comes down to desires. When we set our hearts on lesser desires, and we don't get what we want, we are ready for war. The heavenly-minded life is for someone who has set his affections on Christ and the life above. What he desires is already securely his. That's why he has a peace that passes the understanding of people that insist on the lesser desires first, the desires that come with worldliness.

Not that there is something wrong with food, friends, good work, or recreation. These are gifts of God that should be received with joy. But if you have your heart set on them as your first love, what do you do when they become unattainable?

If you love God best and hope for heaven most, then you already have what you want more than anything, and no one can ever take that away from you. Your participation in what you love is already completely guaranteed. If you want the lesser pleasures too, that's not a problem, you can ask God for them. He can help you, and His choices and timing for you on all these things are the absolute best. That helps you to rest now, and to enjoy what He gives to you when He gives it. Don't live for lesser passions, but make God and the heavenly life your chief delight, and use whatever He gives to you today as an expression of your joy in Him and your commitment to serve in everything.

For healthy and happy Christian living, Jesus insists on being first in your life. He died for you. You can't give Him up for someone you love more. When anything in your world is a better friend to you than Jesus, then you are asking God to take a lower place in your affections, underneath something that He has created. God will not put up with that kind of spiritual adultery. He is faithful to you, and He is asking you to be faithful to Him. Will you be willing to make that commitment?

Our God is an appropriately jealous Lord. That's why He demands your highest affections. When we look at the Christian life through the lens of God's requirements, we can easily become discouraged. Take this simple directive that God be our chief desire. Many claim to obey God on this, but have they been tested? Have their dearest idols been taken away from them? Only a man without any sin could accurately claim to love God his whole heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Seeing our failure again concerning this or any other holy law that we have been given, we are driven back to the Lord's mercy, because we need Him to forgive us and to receive us again through the perfection of Christ, who died for us. Then, as our hearts are pierced through with the fact of our own failures, we find this great help: “He gives more grace.” This is what we need, more grace.

He gives grace to the humble, but He resists the proud. We remember the cross again, and we are humbled, which is where we want to be. We are tired and weak, but the One who gives more grace calls out to our souls: “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.” This is what we need to do, and God will provide the strength.

We fall again, and He keeps on coming back for us. He says to us, “Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.” We cannot find a place to rest in ourselves. We are plainly not good enough, and He is calling us to repent. We had thought that everything was going to be rest right away, but the rest He has for us includes a sweeping rejection of all idols. He says, “Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.”

Our peace comes to us in worship. The Lord touches us and speaks to us. He insists that He loves us, that we are His, and that He is ours. But then He insists again that we humble ourselves before Him, and that He will exalt us. And He will. He will rid us of entangling affections and heavy obstacles. God knows how to move mountains out of our way. We need to trust Him, and we need to keep moving in the right direction.

If we are thinking and speaking against others, judging the body of Christ in some way that we would not appreciate being judged, we need to see God throw that boulder out of our pathway to heaven. It is blocking the progress that we seek.

If we are boasting and bragging to others about what we are, or what we will do, then we need the Lord to blast through that wall of rock that will only stop our forward momentum. We have no idea what tomorrow will bring. Soon our brief mist of a life on this tired planet will come to an end.

If Jesus, who died for us, does not take us to be with Him where He is, then our future will not be bright. We need a friend who is alive with love and divine power. May the Lord's good will for us include the power of Jesus clearing the pathway for us, even being the pathway for us, to heaven. We know the way to go. Let us walk in it when all seems hopeless. Christ will surely walk with us as far as we need to travel with Him this day.