{"id":6162,"date":"2015-02-20T00:43:49","date_gmt":"2015-02-20T00:43:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/?p=6162"},"modified":"2015-02-20T00:43:49","modified_gmt":"2015-02-20T00:43:49","slug":"james-45-gods-jealousy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/?p=6162","title":{"rendered":"James 4:5\u2014God\u2019s jealousy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Or<em> do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: \u201cHe jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us\u201d? <\/em>James 4:5<\/p>\n<p>James was writing to born-again believers and correcting those who exhibited the following: [Taken from James 4:1-4.]<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Quarreling and conflicts within the church<\/li>\n<li>Lusting after one another\u2019s possessions, position, power, and\/or prestige<\/li>\n<li>Allowing antagonism to boil over to the point of murderous thoughts\u2014perhaps even murder, itself<\/li>\n<li>Envying and fighting over jealous desires<\/li>\n<li>Not seeking God to fulfill wants and desires<\/li>\n<li>Asking God, but with wrong motives\u2014in order to fulfill selfish desire as opposed to being better able to serve or glorify God<\/li>\n<li>Becoming like the world, demonstrating hostility to God\u2014spiritual adultery<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>When you receive Jesus Christ as Lord, you become a new creation and the habitation of God through the Holy Spirit. As a believer, your new course is to pursue God, feed on His Word, worship with like-minded believers, and listen to and obey the leading of the Holy Spirit. By doing these things, you grow in Christ and build on the foundation of His Word\u2014a trustworthy platform from which you can make divinely-informed decisions. However, He does not turn you into a robot or marionette. In other words, God does not excuse you from maintaining <em>your<\/em> end of your relationship with Him.<\/p>\n<p>Once you are born again, you are born again. But you have the responsibility as a new creation to conduct your life\u2014both inwardly and outwardly\u2014according to the precepts of the New Testament. You are called <em>to work out your salvation with fear and trembling<\/em> (Philippians 2:12b); you are admonished to present your body to God as a living sacrifice and to refuse to be conformed to the world (see Romans 12:1-2). You are further instructed to be transformed by the renewing of your mind and to receive the Word with humility which is able to save your soul (see Romans 12:2 and James 1:21).<\/p>\n<p>The 1970 movie \u201cLove Story\u201d introduced a slogan into pop culture: &#8220;Love means never having to say you&#8217;re sorry.&#8221; I remember moviegoers being so moved by the sentiment of that message, yet even as a teenager, I didn\u2019t buy it. <em>If someone hurt me<\/em>, I thought, <em>I&#8217;d <strong>want <\/strong>them to apologize. <\/em>As far as I saw it, <em>not <\/em>saying you were sorry meant that you were taking advantage of someone\u2019s love, intent upon doing your own thing, with no regard for their feelings.<\/p>\n<p>And so we have the uncompromised gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus voluntarily died so that you could be saved. In fact, you were saved by grace through faith. Your salvation is not the result of your works\u2014it\u2019s a gift from God (see Ephesians 2:8-9). However, you were not saved merely to acquire hell-insurance. Your salvation opened the door for you to have free access to God\u2014the Maker of the universe\u2014as your Father, both now and for eternity. Your salvation began the adventure of your life, founded on and maintained by close intimacy with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.<\/p>\n<p>And since you aren&#8217;t a puppet or a programmable droid, everything you think, do, and say <em>really does<\/em> matter to the One with whom you are in relationship. And therefore, the slogan of the seventies, &#8220;Love means never having to say you&#8217;re sorry,&#8221; should <em>never<\/em> be your philosophy as a Christian.<\/p>\n<p><em>Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: \u201cHe jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us\u201d?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>James made it very clear\u2014you and I are accountable before God <em>as new creatures<\/em> for our choices, behaviors, attitudes, and words. The privilege to be a dwelling place for the Holy Spirit is not to be taken lightly\u2014it is monumental and paradigm-shifting. As a Christian, you walk around this planet with the Spirit of the Living God on the inside of you. And yet, you have the freedom to ignore, neglect, or defy His leading. If that is the course you choose\u2014supported, perhaps, by a misguided understanding of His grace\u2014you might feel that it would be legalistic or unnecessary to confess selfish or compromising choices as sin and to ask for forgiveness. This dismissive attitude toward personal behavior arouses God&#8217;s jealousy. Simply stated, here\u2019s why: You, who have entered covenant with Him, refuse to allow the God of grace to counsel, correct, and lead you\u2014actively denying Him the Lordship that you originally gave Him.<\/p>\n<p>God\u2019s abiding grace poured out on you doesn&#8217;t render null and void the fact that you have the capacity to grieve the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 4:30 cautions all of us, \u201c<em>Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.<\/em>\u201d It is very possible to grieve the Holy Spirit; therefore it makes sense that God jealously desires His Spirit not only to dwell in you, but also for Him to be honored through your words, actions, and attitudes.<\/p>\n<p>You have the unparalleled opportunity to be indwelt by the Spirit of God. Don\u2019t neglect Him or grieve Him. Nothing you crave\u2014nothing this world has to offer\u2014could ever come close to the joy, pleasure, and wonder of being a yielded vessel of the Spirit of God.<\/p>\n<p>Dorothy<\/p>\n<p><em>Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body<\/em>. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: \u201cHe jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us\u201d? James 4:5 James was writing to born-again believers and correcting those who exhibited the following: [Taken from James 4:1-4.] Quarreling and conflicts within the church Lusting after one another\u2019s possessions, position, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-james-4"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6162"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6163,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6162\/revisions\/6163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}