The Bible Study Podcast, Episode 72.

This is the fourth episode in a series on the Book of James.

Welcome to the Bible Study podcast.

I'm your host, Chris Christensen. Today we continue our story in the book of James, and we jump right in here, starting in James 4.

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something, but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have

what you want. 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. Remember that James is addressing again the church, and apparently a church

that is divided, a church that is not aligned, and he says that part of their problem, at least,

is coming from their desires. Part of their problem is coming from their desires, which are

not on godly things, but they're on the

things they want. Now, this doesn't sound to me that different from our day, our age, and

unfortunately on some of our churches. There are fights and quarrels because people are

focused on what they want. They're focused on what they

covet. They're clearly very worldly in the sense that they're focused on the things that they

can get here and there and they're focused on things, probably they're the same things that

their neighbors are focused on. You want it and don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want.

Now, fortunately, most of the churches that I've been in, while they may have quarrels, haven't yet

had somebody killed in a church council meeting. So I don't know whether James is meaning that

literally or not, but basically there's a big problem going on here. You want something but don't get it.

There's an unfulfilled nature in this. And James goes on to say, you don't have it because you don't ask God.

And even when you do ask, he says you ask with wrong motives that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

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