by Pastor Afolabi Oladele

Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts. Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. James 4:2-4

During the early days of the church the word passion (lust) referred to those persistent and uncontrolled desires of the flesh that draw us away from God. Do your passions or persistent desires draw you closer to God or away from Him? Are the things you are asking for drawing you closer or away from Him? This is the acid test to which we subject all our requests of the Lord as is implicit in the testimony of Apostle James in our text of today. We must start subjecting those things, our requests (for new toys or new cars, the building of or the need to move to a bigger house, or a better job for a better pay) to God’s perfect view of tomorrow in the realization that what these things might become to us or do in us is best known only to Him. If we neglect to subject our requests to the test of His scrutiny and decision, we may find ourselves in the place of passions that are un-crucified to Christ – Galatians 2:20; Galatians 5:24.

Remember you don’t get there at once but you must start today. This is a necessary step we all need to take in these perilous times. Selah.

Photo by Stijn Swinnen on Unsplash