The David Spoon Experience 2-23-24 part 1

A) Then the apostle says, "You crave what you do not have; you kill and covet, unable to obtain it. You quarrel and fight." It needs to be understood that what the apostle is trying to communicate is that there are things inside of us that have cravings, and we would do anything to get those cravings. When it talks about killing and coveting, it has to do with the internal man feeling anger towards anything and anyone that gets in the way of what they're trying to obtain.

B) Then James gets fierier and he says, "You do not have because you do not ask. Well, wait a second. We asked God for plenty of things, don't we? Yes, but he then reiterates, "When you do ask, you don't receive it because you ask with the wrong motives." Christians need to grow up a little here. They don't get things from God just because they ask. They can't be things that are based on the wrong motives or have the wrong spirit attached to them because the answer is no.

C) The challenge is that James says, "You ask so that you can squander it on your pleasures," and that is just not the way to live the Christian life. It's not about how you feel, which is 100% connected to pleasures. It's about your obedience to the Lord. It's about your desire to spend eternity with him. And it's about keeping your old man in check and your new man at the forefront. We are then warned, without reservation, "Don't you know that friendship with the world is hostility towards God?" When we live our lives based on our feelings and on our pleasures, we are living our lives in contrast and contradiction to what God created us to be. And that, my friends, is a no-go.