James 4:1-10.          

We’re one year removed from the 2024 elections. Don’t you just love election season? The rhetoric, the bantering, the conflict! Yet the conflict in today’s passage isn’t of those in the world. This is about the conflict and disputes among the people of God: church folk.

We can be people in conflict with one another. We fuss with one another. This is how the world behaves, James says. He points out that God yearns jealously for the Spirit He has made to dwell in us. Does this happen magically somehow, with fairy dust and three taps of a wand? Of course not! It happens when God’s people submit themselves (both communally and individually) to God, resist the devil, and draw near to God.

James goes on to give just reasons for you and I to examine our hearts, seek a cleansing of hands and hearts, and avoid being double-minded. Maybe your local body of believers is experiencing tension right now. The recipe for life is in the text before us today: When we draw near, He will exalt us.

Author: Matt Zimmer