Morning Moments

JAMES Devotional Outline

I. Wisdom's Wealth - Chapter 1
II. Worthwhile Works - Chapter 2
III. Wholesome Words - Chapter 3
IV. Worldly Ways - Chapter 4
A. Conflict 4:1

B. Covetousness 4:2-3
4:2. 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. 3. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.

The line in the movie "The American" sticks with me when I read this verse, "How much?" "What do you mean how much?" "How much is enough?" "More!? That is the craze of the Worldly Ways - never enough!

For the believer, "Contentment with godliness is great gain" but we have been suckered into this worldly ways of "church business". But it starts in the heart. There is the demand of the people for more, the demand of the pastor for more, the demand of the kids for more, the demand of the choir for more, and this demand for more is creating conflict when we don't get it and after we do. We pray and don't get it so we find a way and say God led us to it. All so that we can get more to consume of our own cravings.

Will this madness ever stop? Nope! It is the way of the world. I read the other day about a church plant to be built with a shopping center in it. Hopefully it wasn't true. It is not God leading this, it is the world driving it and is why very soon the taxes upon the kingdoms we are building will break our backs. But again, it starts in the heart.

We are as children in a toy shop that have our run on the toys. We plays with one until he tires, then the next, and the next until they all have bored us. Isn't there anybody besides me that sees this monster that greed and covetousness has created for us.

Even the smaller churches are trying it so that they can draw people like the bigger churches. It is a malady of today's society. This covetousness is one of the Worldly Ways that left England with empty cathedrals and will ultimately do the same for the rest of us. And the sad thing is that those precious natives of other lands think that is the way to work and worship God. How sad! BEWARE of covetousness, which is idolatry.

BLESSINGS!