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.

James 4:1-3

Continued.

Am I not a child of the Prince of Peace? What on earth will He deny me if I ask of Him? Has He not told me to, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you” (Matt. 7:7)? Will He give me a stone for bread or a snake for fish? Maybe I must hear Him through Philip’s ears: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time?” (Jn. 14:9).

Aah! My motives! That’s it. Nobody sees it. I don’t even recognize them myself. But deep down within my heart, they have taken root. They drive me. They ride me. They command me. And, with trembling feet, I run to do their bidding.  

Not anymore! The double-edged sword of my Lord has dug down into my heart and exposed those slave drivers (Heb. 4:12-13). My desires are now submitted to my Sovereign King. Not my will, but His will be done (Lk. 22:42). Not my desires, but His desires and purposes may be accomplished in me (Isa. 55:11).

I am free! He has delivered me from myself to do His will. I will not run from myself anymore. I refuse to turn away from His mirror and forget how I look. Rather, I will continue to look intently into His perfect word and not forget what I hear but do it (James. 1:23-25).

So, I challenge you today to come with me on this journey of freedom in Christ; and may the Lord open the floodgates of heaven and pour His blessings on us in whatever His Spirit empowers us to do, in the matchless name of Jesus, amen.