LIFE WITHOUT GOD’S GRACE IS FULL OF STRIVE!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

MONDAY AUGUST 15, 2022.

SUBJECT: LIFE WITHOUT GOD’S GRACE IS FULL OF STRIVE!

Memory verse: "Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members?” (James 4 vs 1.)

READ: Psalm 127 vs 1 - 2: 

127:1: Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it. Unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.

127:2: It is vain for you to rise early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows; For so He gives His beloved sleep.

INTIMATION:

A life without the grace of God is a disgrace. I hear people say things like; "I am confused, I really don't know what is happening to me, Nothing seems to be working in my life, I don't know what I have done that God has turned His back on me; on and on." All these are strife, discord, conflicts and wars going on within their own selves.

How does these disturbances get started within us? They are started when we make the mistake of leaving God out of our lives. When we do, all our accomplishments will be futile. We know that the aforementioned conditions are not God's will for us because His thoughts for us is for good and not of evil (Jeremiah 29 vs 11). The Lord does not want His children to live in the midst of a constant interior war, but rather in His kingdom. Though, the nature of this world in which we live is full of toiling, striving, and turmoil, but it is not the nature of the kingdom of God that within us (Luke 17 vs 21); “for the kingdom of God righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Romans 14 vs 17).

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Jesus said that the kingdom of God is within us, not like an earthly kingdom with geographical boundaries. Instead, it begins with the work of God's Spirit in our lives and relationships. The Spirit, with His work, produces the fruit of the Spirit: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” (Galatians 5 vs 22 - 23.) 

It’s the grace of God (the power of God) expressed in us through the work of the Holy Spirit that produces the fruit of the Spirit which are the character traits of Jesus Christ. They are the by-product of Christ’s control, and we can’t obtain them by trying to get them without the grace of God.

One reason you and I came to Christ in the first place is because we want to escape all that kind of endless strife and conflict. That is why we became citizens of the Kingdom of God. As followers of Jesus Christ that is our heritage. Why is it, then, that so many of us who truly love God, who are going to heaven, who are called according to His divine purpose, still spend our earthly existence in the midst of what we are trying so desperately to escape from? What is the source of this strife? Where does it originate?

But notice the second part of the verse. James tells us that all these negative things arise from the sensual desires that are ever warring in our members. Do you know that you and I can get into conflict by wanting something that is clearly God's will for us, if we try to get it by our own effort? If we go about trying to get it in the wrong way, we will only produce strife and war and conflict within us.

For instance, God wants our spouse and our children to be saved. We know that is His will for us because He has said in His Word that He desires that all people be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth (First Timothy 2 vs 4). Yet you and I can get frustrated and cause all kinds of misery for ourselves and others if we go about trying to get them saved by our own human efforts, forgetting that no one can come to Christ except It has been granted to him by God the Father (John 6 vs 65), or he is drawn to Christ by the Father (John 6 vs 44).

It is certainly God's will for us to live holy lives, but I can't tell you how much conflict I caused in my life trying to be holy. I wanted to do all things right, but I went about getting them done the wrong ways. That is what James is warning us about in James 4 vs 1 - 3:  “Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.” 

He is saying that strife and conflict arise within us because our desires, even our righteous desires, are warring in our bodily members because we want to achieve them by our own efforts outside the grace of God, and that is impossible. 

The apostle Paul, the greatest of all the apostles, found himself in this feud of wanting to achieve by his own power, and failing woefully. He then confessed; "O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (Romans 7 vs 24 - 25). It’s only in the grace of God (power of God) can he achieve the life he desires. Cut off from Christ you can do nothing!

Prayer: Abba Father, by my strength I cannot achieve my heart desires, especially in serving and obeying You appropriately. Engrace me, therefore, to make my boast in Christ who strengthens me to achieve, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed. Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!