“From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? 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.”
James 4:1-3 KJV
Desire is a gift from God, but God wants you to desire good things, and He’ll put those good desires into your heart?
- God wants you to desire Him. Psalm 143:6 says, “I stretch forth my hands unto thee: my soul thirsteth after thee, as a thirsty land.”
- God wants you to desire His salvation and to have a desire to obey His laws. Psalm 119:174 says, “I have longed for thy salvation, O LORD; and thy law is my delight.”
- God wants you to desire His Word. I Peter 2:2 says, “As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby…”
- God wants you to have a desire to live in His presence every day of your life and to see His beauty. Psalm 27:4 says, “One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to enquire in his temple.”
- God wants to give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:3-4 says, “Trust in the LORD, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed. Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.”
There are conditions. First, you must delight yourself in Him. But before delighting comes trusting and doing good. So you must trust in the Lord and do good; then you delight yourself in Him, and, at that point, He will give you the desires of your heart. Because by then, your desires are godly and they please Him.
You see, there’s nothing wrong with desires, providing we desire the right things.
God intends for us to desire good things, but just as the devil perverts the good things of God and distorts His truth, he also corrupts godly desires designed to draw us closer to God by twisting them into self-serving lusts. And that’s what James is talking about.
- Our flesh at its worst. “From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?”
- We desire the wrong things and strive to get them in all the wrong ways. “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.”
- We ask for all the wrong reasons. “Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.”
God would like very much to give you the desires of your heart. But before He can do that, your desires must align with His desires for you.
And I John 2:16 says, “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.”