James 4:13-16
Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that. But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil.
Read all of James Chapter 4 here
It almost seems as if James has taken a change of direction here, as he moves on to another subject. Now the subject is the audacity of a group of men and their plan making without considering the plans and wishes of God in those plans.
A case can be made that this section still bears a substantial relationship to some of the previous discussions. The linkage here is pride. We can see from earlier writings in this chapter the things pride and a desire to operate our lives independent from God causes. In the first part of Chapter 4 we saw how this has made us love the things of the world rather than God. We saw later how this has made us think we can be the judge of our brethren instead of God.
Finally, we see here that James’ readers just had to seize one more opportunity to use their pride as a reason to shake their fists in God’s face and go their own direction. We will explore in the next day or two exactly what these men were about to do, as they put together their own plans with no regard for God’s desires.
But, let’s chase a rabbit for a bit first and recap some things we know about pride so that we can truly understand the seriousness of this issue. We tend to treat our pride as somewhat of a minor issue, when in fact a case could be made that pride is actually the driving force behind every other sin.
It was pride that made Lucifer fall and take one third of God’s angels from heaven with him. We can read how Lucifer started out as one of God’s most beautiful creations and chose to rebel in Ezekiel 28. We can read of Satan’s five “I Wills” and how his pride caused his fall in Isaiah 14.
Of course, we all know the story of Adam and Eve’s Fall in the Garden of Eden as described in Genesis Chapter 3. The Apostle John later tells us that the “Pride of life” is one of the things which places us in the world rather than in God. 1 John 2:16
So, is pride serious? Of course, it is. Is it the most serious? Maybe so.
August 8, 2018 at 08:56
That was a worthy rabbit to chase. Pride is often overlooked, but is a serious sin.
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August 8, 2018 at 09:00
Indeed, perhaps the most serious leading to many others. Thanks Lynn. I have found your recent visits very encouraging.
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August 8, 2018 at 09:09
Reblogged this on Talmidimblogging.
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August 8, 2018 at 09:45
Thanks, brother Vincent
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August 8, 2018 at 18:18
You’re very welcome Brother Wally 😁
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August 8, 2018 at 09:19
Pride is one of those sins that is hard to see in our own selves….
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August 8, 2018 at 09:45
Ha…because we are so proud of ourselves! Thanks, Beth.
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August 8, 2018 at 11:48
Sad but true….
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August 8, 2018 at 10:08
Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.
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August 8, 2018 at 10:31
Yep!
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August 8, 2018 at 11:55
You wrote: “Now the subject is the audacity of a group of men and their plan making without considering the plans and wishes of God in those plans.”
Wow! You may have thought that your comment came from your head but I’m here to tell you it was straight from the Holy Spirit. As soon as I read it, bells and whistles went off in my spirit. The Holy Spirit used your words to give me a slight nudge of a course correction. Awesome word…
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August 8, 2018 at 12:00
I am glad to hear that Patrick. It’s awesome how He uses the small words we print here sometimes. I pray that your course change is the right one.
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August 8, 2018 at 13:23
Thanks… The course correction is the simple courtesy of asking Him about His plans for me before jumping off into mine.
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August 8, 2018 at 13:24
https://servinggrace.com/2018/08/08/oh-the-arrogance/
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August 8, 2018 at 13:35
Thank you for this post. For some reason my wordpress blog has been a mess lately and it hasn’t shown me a lot of people’s post. So I’m glad Vincent reblogged this and I found this. I appreciate you addressing the issue of our pride.
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August 8, 2018 at 13:36
Thanks bro Jim and sorry your reader is whacked!
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August 8, 2018 at 13:48
I hope it gets sorted out
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August 8, 2018 at 13:27
Thanks for the shout out, Patrick!
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