Selfishness and covetousness are the devil’s bread and butter.

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James 4:1-3

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We make it too easy.

When we live our lives focused on the world, we wake up being selfish and go to bed coveting the things of others.

I’m not saying we’re bad people, we’re just falling for the Evil One’s most effective trap.

Material things appeal to us. New cars, boats, houses, designer suits, and jewelry – they look good and we want them.

Why?

At the heart of selfishness and covetousness is the satisfaction of me. What I want is more important than what God wants for me. Oftentimes, we’ll even surprise ourselves at the lengths we will go to satisfy our insatiable desire to live in this world and be defined by it.

I’m reminded of the old saying, at least I think it’s “old”, “He who dies with the most toys wins.“

As a Christian, I can’t think of a more obscene lie that’s being perpetrated on the world.

Having said that; however, there was a time in my life when I thought the saying was cute and probably agreed with it, at least on some unconscious level, not fully understanding, or even caring, about the implications of selling out to being sold out.

In today’s Tiny Words. Big Life. Bible verse, James (Jesus’s brother) describes the Evil One’s plan and how it was working in the early church. When I read James 4:1-7, (a few extra verses for your study), I’m moved by their truth and convicted by the words.

As was his nature, James tells it like it is. By the way, when you love people, that’s what you do.

The Tiny Words. Big Life. “AHA!” moment is this: Things will never provide lasting happiness. To think otherwise is foolishness and is giving in to the Evil One. And when you do that, according to James, you’re an enemy of God. (In most translations, he uses the word “enmity” which means “hostility”. Sounds like an enemy to me…)

If that doesn’t appeal to you (and me), we need to recheck our priorities. In fact, we need to pray for forgiveness and ask God to cleanse our heart. We need to move God to the front seat of our desires because our one-and-only trip to the Pearly Gates will not be taken in that brand new Mercedes.

And now that I’m thinkin about bread and butter, I’m feeling it for real – nice and thick with some strawberry jelly slathered on top! And the devil ain’t gettin’ a single bite!

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James 4:1-3

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 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. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.