Friday Reading: James 4:1-4
Key Verse: James 4:3
3 You ask and receive not, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it upon your lusts.
Devotion:
How many times in your life have you asked for something and never got it? Most of the time that we ask for things it is because we want them as opposed to needing them; when we do need something it is often supplied to us. Our wants and our needs are two different things... We need food and water to physically survive but we would rather have cake and coke! Our need is for sustenance but our want is for the niceties! If we have both set out in front of us we will do what is in our hearts and that is to go after our wants rather than our needs because our hearts are ruled by emotion rather than common sense!
You can wind up just about any country enough and they will be willing to go to war. War is where people kill each other; yet they would not choose to kill another person normally. Our hearts do give in to our lusts and our wants rather than our needs. We may need peace, but our hearts want us to have war against those that do not want us to have peace.
And then we come to the way we act with God... Not only do we do all this in front of Him (so we are acting like that to Him) but we get to the point where we suddenly think that it is OK to ask for our wants rather than our needs. That is when we suddenly get a deaf ear turned towards us. Why should God listen to our wants when He knows that that is exactly what they are? Why should He feed our lusts when He knows what we do need? If we ask in vain we should not expect to receive! If we want to have Christ as our Friend, we need to first turn our back on the world because the world has already rejected Christ and He does not abide in it. It’s not a case of turning you back on everything and all others, it’s a case of sorting out the difference between your wants and your needs!
Points to Ponder:
Do you always get what you want?
Are you asking God for your wants or your needs?
