James 4:13-17 - Kill our Pride
James 4:13-17 - Kill our Pride
James closes out chapter four with a warning about boasting. Reading this chapter headline, Boasting About Tomorrow, just drives home the reality that God despises pride. There are countless verse all through the Old and New Testament, and the Profit Isaiah said this;
“For the Lord of Heaven’s Armies has a day of reckoning. He will punish the proud and mighty and bring down everything that is exalted.” - Isaiah 2:12 NLT
If a day of reckoning and the mighty Lord bringing down everything that is exalted isn’t enough, here is a Proverb about pride.
“The Lord detests the proud; they will surely be punished.” - Proverbs 16:5 NLT
Then the Apostle Paul brings it home contrasting love and pride.
“Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud” - 1 Corinthians 13:4 NLT
This hits home for me, and such an area I draw deep awareness of because of the fact I am a Prideaholic. I struggle with pride, a significant area of weakness growing up and all through my young years. Pride carried well into my marriage and well into ministry and has nearly taken me out of ministry a hand full of times. God has continued to refine me and break me in this area to a place I now call as a recovering prideaholic...but total transformation is yet to happen. There are still issues and character flaws in me.
God loves me unconditionally, but He hates my pride. James is taking us to a place in this text I believe we all need to pay close attention to. This is a place where we might not naturally connect pride and boasting with. Let us get into the text.
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.
Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.
As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.
To be honest, I read the opening to that and can often find myself thinking or saying something very similar. Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit. How about you, ever think about what you are going to do today, or tomorrow and make a plan and put together a spreadsheet or a project plan? But the second section I separated says Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills...” Here is the difference, if the Lord wills. The pride and the boasting and arrogance comes from the first statement that we think we are in control. In our human minds and lives, we live we believe we are in control of the day we choose, where we will go, how long we will be gone, how it will play out. Pride takes all this on and places the control on ourselves.
There is a vast idea and word called sovereignty. The sovereignty of God and it is stated in this section. If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that. The simple definition of the sovereignty of God is that God is in control of ALL THINGS. There is nothing God does not control and is not in charge of.
“The Lord has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules overall.” - Psalm 103:19 ESV
James is drawing out the fact that when we act like we are in control, that when we make our plans and make statements of what we are going to do when we are going to do it and what the results look like we are taking God off the throne in the heavens and putting ourselves on that throne. This is boasting, arrogant, and prideful. James even tells us that All such boasting is evil.
I feel the weight of this passage, not sure about you. I like to be in control, or at least not feel like I am being controlled. This causes tension and challenges, and trying to reconcile that control issue with the sovereignty of God leads to a head-on collision. If the Lord wills is a posture, we must bring into our lives, and apply to our day. Oh man, I do not have this figured out, I am still being refined. Lord, help me see as you see and do as you desire me to do. Father trust and control go hand in hand. May I live my life today, and daily in a posture of trust, submitting to your will and aligning my plans with yours. Amen.