If the Lord Wills

James 4 begins with questions: Where do wars and fightings among you come from? Don’t they come from your pleasures that war in your members? Unmet desires lead to envy and conflict. Prayer is neglected or twisted: You don’t have, because you don’t ask. You ask, and don’t receive, because you ask with wrong motives. James uses the Old Testament picture of unfaithfulness to describe divided loyalty: friendship with the world is hostility toward God.

Yet the answer is grace. He gives more grace. Therefore it says, God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Short commands follow. Be subject to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, purify your hearts, and mourn over sin. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will exalt you.

The chapter then addresses two kinds of pride. One is judging a brother, which sets a person above the law; only one is the lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy. The other is confident planning that leaves God out. Come now, you who say, Today or tomorrow let’s go into this city and spend a year there, trade, and make a profit. Yet you don’t know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are a vapor. Instead you ought to say, If the Lord wills, we will both live, and do this or that. James closes with a searching line: To him therefore who knows to do good and doesn’t do it, to him it is sin.