08/19/2021
WORD UP
LACKING BY NOT ASKING GOD.
Many seem frustrated, stressed, and angry. You meet them in your neighborhood, local supermarket, in the mall, and even in church. They behave as if the world is mistreating them. Unfortunately, these types of attitudes lead to harmful behaviors. Behaviors that kill, or as the Bible puts it, murder. They lack what they want and cannot get it. They covet what other people have and believe they deserve those blessings as well. Why would a Christian behave like this? Listen to this:
James 4:1-2 says, “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet, but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God [NIV].”
What a revelation! At the heart of the problems is some peoples’ response to not getting what they want out of life. In those moments, when they realize that what they want is still out of grasp, they always have a choice. The world tells us to fight, scratch, and wound if that is what it takes. Driven by envy of what they want, they become frustrated when they keep coming up empty [Romans 10:3]. Therefore, they fight, stir up conflict, and hate innocent people, practice betrayal, lie, and a host of other sins.
These types of Christians refuse to trust Him to provoke the need [Proverbs 3:5]. They refuse to ask God for what they want, and when they ask, they ask amiss. They have the wrong motive [James 4:3]. God might say no, after all.
The answer to receiving what you desire is to ask God. There is nothing God cannot do or will not do through faith [St. Matthews 21:22]. The “land of not enough” will always exist for those who will not put God’s rule, authority, and way of doing things first [St. Matthews 6:33]. People are not the problem. Refusing to submit oneself to God is ALWAYS the problem [I Peter 5:6]. Submit yourself to God and He will exalt you in due season. It is as simple as that.
Bishop John C. Parks, Th.D., BS, MBA, ESPO