As we enter the 4th chapter of James this week in our series titled, “Dispersed & Dedicated”, James is going to address matters that would cause us to lose our friendship with God while we live in this world.
When we align ourselves with the world and live with carnal thinking, and sinful behaviors we become enemies of God. On the other hand, when we serve Him faithfully, we maintain a wonderful friendship with God and this affords us so many spiritual blessings not only here, but in the eternal life to come.
Today we are going to study this passage from the perspective of being friends of God, as these Christians were, and consider the qualities that could potentially destroy our relationship with Him. There is no greater privilege than to be called a friend of God as Abraham was. Jesus even told us that we were His friends if we would simply do what He asked of us. Let us seek the will of the Lord together.
Let’s read James 4:1-12 as we get started.
“1 What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? 2 You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so, you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. 4 You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: “He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us”? 6 But He gives a greater grace. Therefore, it says, “GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE.” 7 Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you. 11 Do not speak against one another, brethren. He who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks against the law and judges the law; but if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge of it. 12 There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and to destroy; but who are you who judge your neighbor?”
Earthly pleasures destroy heavenly friendships with God and other Christians (vs. 1-3)
“1 What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? 2 You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.”
The source of conflicts and quarreling is your pleasures at war within you.
It is sad to watch people in the body of Christ spat and have arguments. James is not suggesting that these behaviors are flaring up in the church at this time, but that in a moment if we are not prepared to handle each circumstance carefully, conflicts can arise quickly. Have you ever thought to yourself, how foolish these people are to be at each other’s throats over such petty matters? In Corinth, it was reported to the apostle Paul that there were quarrels and divisions among the brethren. They were fighting about which apostle they were going to claim that they followed, “I am of Paul” or “I am of Apollos” or, “I am with Cephas” or “I am with Christ”. Now we look at this as an outsider and shake our heads in shame that this was an actual issue that they dealt with in the church. We are all of Christ according to the Bible. But you better believe that churches have split over more trivial matters than this. Much harm has been done to the unity of the body of Christ because of personal preferences. From time to time, we ourselves are guilty of these same behaviors at least in thought. We need to check our thoughts and immediately return to the truth. Remember that the war is in your members before it is released among the members of the Lord’s church. In Colossians 3:5, Paul said,
“Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry.”
We start an all-out war in our physical bodies when we have a personal pleasure that we want to have fulfilled. In Romans 7:23, Paul taught, “but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members.” We hate to lose the fight, so we stand our ground and let the battle rage on until we feel satisfied that we obtained what we were fighting for. The worst part of war is that in every battle there are innocent casualties.
James identifies personal pleasures as the source and the root of all fighting. In Galatians 5:17, we find this teaching from Paul “For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please.” Your selfish pleasures are at the center of every conflict. Remember that next time you see the trouble brewing and you are deciding how you are going to handle it. Try a peaceful solution instead. James just taught us that we should be peacemakers at the end of chapter 3 if we choose to use wisdom from above. Let the world use its foolishness to decide how to operate. Paul said I Cor. 1:20, “Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” Then in I Corinthians 3:19 he adds, “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God. For it is written, ‘[He is] THE ONE WHO CATCHES THE WISE IN THEIR CRAFTINESS’” We do not fight against flesh and blood; we have spiritual battles to win for the cause of Christ. We use the wisdom of God in our fight against evil forces that seek to destroy our souls.
Murders, fighting, and quarreling all stem from unfulfilled lusts and desires.
When we lust for something and yet we do not have it in our possession, we are willing to stoop as low as to murder for it. It happens every day. James has already described the downward spiral of our fall into temptations. We learned that each one is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived it gives birth to sin and when sin is finished, it brings forth death. DEATH! No doubt this is talking about our spiritual death but is it possible that we would kill or be killed for something in order to have a desire fulfilled? YES! That is why prisons are full of convicts that took a life for the next drug fix, dirty money, sex crime, etc. Socrates is reported by Plato to have said on the day of his death, "nothing else but the body and its desires cause wars, seditions, and contests of every kind; for all wars arise through the possession of wealth."
We are envious of certain things in life and James explains that when we cannot obtain them, we feel like there is no other option but to fight and quarrel to attempt to take them for ourselves. Envy leads to coveting and before we know it, we are bickering over something that we have no right to be involved in. If we do not have it, James says, it is because we did not ask for it. We have already been told that we can seek wisdom from God if we lack it. At the same time, we were told not to doubt Him and to have full trusting faith that God would provide. Unfortunately, sometimes our motives behind our requests are sinful or motivated by selfishness. James taught us in our last study,
“For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing."
Motives behind our petitions to God cannot be driven by sinful pleasures in this life.
James specifically says, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.” The request appeared to be a petition for monetary gain, but God who knows the secrets of men’s hearts can decipher whether our aim is to bless others or to hoard the gift and spend it on vain pleasures in this life.
Think about Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11). They could not trick God in their evil scheming with financial gain. Nothing is hidden from the sight of God. Everything is laid bare before His eyes. What advantage do you have in asking God for something knowing that your desire is to obtain sordid gain for personal want and pleasure? God answers prayers for all kinds of petitions but you must be aware that He knows the thoughts and intentions of your heart behind the request. He will not open His hand to those that have ulterior motives.
Worldly passions make us hostile with God (vs. 4-6)
“4 You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: “He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us”? 6 But He gives a greater grace. Therefore, it says, ‘GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE.’”
We commit adultery by befriending the world and become enemies of God.
God has always viewed Himself in a covenant relationship with His people (see Ezek. 16). Many times, the language used to describe our relationship with God is like a marriage. When we step out on God and entertain worldly passions and sinful pursuits, God views it as spiritual adultery on our part. We have become unfaithful to God when we violate the agreement that we made to remain committed to Him and not become involved with other lovers.
Even a desire for a friendship with the world drives a wedge between us and God, making us enemies with Him. In I John 2:15, John wrote to Christians, “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” There can be no divide in our allegiance to Him. We cannot have a half-hearted relationship with the LORD. Jesus said in Matthew 6:24,
"No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”
He must be our first and last lover of the soul. We cannot sell our soul to the devil and or allow the influences of this world to woo us away from the LORD. The apostle Paul said in Colossians 2:8, “See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.” Then Paul told the church in Philippi in Philippians 3:18, “For many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you even weeping, [that they are] enemies of the cross of Christ.” We must understand that we can be drawn away from our own steadfastness in Christ by those that are working contrary to the will of God. Be on the alert! Walk circumspectly!
God is jealous because He wants His Spirit to dwell in us, but we are so full of the world.
God gives His Holy Spirit to all Christians at their new birth. In Acts 2:38, Peter preached, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” A parallel passage to this is found in Acts 3:19 which reveals that the gift of the Holy Spirit is His abiding presence,
“Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord”.
This abiding presence of God with us is a sign of His friendship, a mark of authenticity for our faith that we have been born again, and a promise (down payment) that we are kept for the day of redemption. There is not enough room in our spirit for the world and the Holy Spirit. We must decide if we want the Spirit of the LORD to dwell in our hearts or if we want to let the world live there. We grieve the Spirit and insult the Spirit of grace when we live in sin after our decision to serve God and His Son Jesus. The reason the Spirit is so affected by our choices is because of His own desires going unfulfilled in that He wants to dwell within us. Herein lies the war. Our flesh, which is weak, is battling with our spirit, which is willing to allow the Spirit to dwell in us, but the flesh does not always cooperate. This is the conflict for the ages. Will we let the Spirit of God lead us or will we live according to the flesh?
God is jealous because of all that He has done to demonstrate His love for us through His Son Jesus Christ. He sent His only begotten Son to die on the cross for our sins so that we could be redeemed from sin and spend eternity with Him. Can you imagine when He looks down upon us and sees us cheating on Him with the sinful world that He came to rescue us from? We cannot expect the Lord in His holiness to sit by and be unaffected by our ungratefulness and in many cases outright and blatant choices to sin despite His grace.
The answer is to humble yourself in repentance and receive God’s grace.
James says, “But He gives a greater grace.” God wants all men everywhere to repent and come to a knowledge of the truth in order to be saved. His first choice is always grace. If we choose to remain proud and arrogant, God will eventually oppose us.
In Proverbs 3:34, we learn, “Though He scoffs at the scoffers, Yet He gives grace to the afflicted”. Then in I Pet. 5:5, the apostle Peter wrote,
“clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE.”
If we will simply humble ourselves, God will give us His grace. It is a grace that is greater than all of our sins. We do not deserve His kindness and good favor, but He desires to bestow it upon the humble. In Isaiah 23:9, the prophet recorded, “The LORD of hosts has planned it, to defile the pride of all beauty, To despise all the honored of the earth.” It will all be handled in the end. Only the humble will survive the wrath of God. He has planned to judge the prideful.
Taking sides is important in a friendship with God (vs. 7-10)
“7 Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.”
STEP 1: Submit to God
Submission is a willingness to admit that you cannot do this life on your own. The world has a strong pull that beckons us to come and join them in their ways. They say things like, “Come drink and party! Explore your sexuality! Do not worry about those white lies! Step on others to get to the top! Speak your mind even if you swear and take the name of the LORD in vain!” My personal favorite is, “God just wants us to be happy!” Wrong!
God wants us to be holy before Him. We need to surrender our will to His will and submit ourselves to Him in humble obedience each day. The world is passing away with its lusts, but the word of the LORD abides forever. Paul wrote in Romans 12:1-2,
“Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, [which is] your spiritual service of worship. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”
STEP 2: Resist the devil
We must put up a resistance. We need to know the Scriptures so that we can use them against the schemes of the devil. Jesus responded to every temptation that he encountered with, “It is written…”, meaning that He knew the will of God and how to stand firm against the wicked one. In I Peter 5:9, we find these words, “But resist him, firm in [your] faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world.” We are not alone in this battle against Satan. We stand with God and our brethren in the fight.
Sometimes our greatest resistance against the devil is not to return an attack but to simply defend our post. We are told to put on the full armor of God in order to withstand any fiery dart of the devil. Resisting is not being moved from your place because you stand in God’s great might. James promises us here that Satan will flee from us. This does not mean that he will never attack again. It means that we choose not to give place to the devil, and we are forcing him to leave and search for a more opportune time. Do not create opportunity for the devil!
STEP 3: Draw near to God
This might sound like the first step which was to submit to God, but it is completely different. The mistake that many people make when developing a friendship with God is that they assume that since they surrendered to God that they now have a strong bond and enduring friendship with God. Would you accept that from your personal friends? Imagine if a friend of yours said to you, “I told you I wanted to be your friend 10 years ago, that should be good enough”. They make no further attempt at maintaining the friendship. We would say this is unacceptable.
Likewise, when we want to grow deeper in our relationship with the LORD, we must make concerted efforts to get closer to Him. This will include prayer, fasting, praise, Bible study, assembling faithfully with His church, spending time in devotion with other Christians. Closeness with God is a mutual move. You draw near to God and then He draws near to you. I love the reminder of II Chronicles 15:2,
“and he went out to meet Asa and said to him, ‘Listen to me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin: the LORD is with you when you are with Him. And if you seek Him, He will let you find Him; but if you forsake Him, He will forsake you.”
It is not that God is far away. It simply means that as soon as you make the move to express interest in being close to God, He reciprocates and meets us in the middle with open arms. Are you with God today?
STEP 4: Cleanse your hands
In conjunction with drawing near to God we also must have clean hands. Hands are associated with the deeds that we do. We cannot approach God with blood on our hands or hands that are involved in sinful practices. In Isaiah 1:15-16, we find this teaching, “So when you spread out your hands [in prayer,] I will hide My eyes from you; Yes, even though you multiply prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are covered with blood. Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; Remove the evil of your deeds from My sight. Cease to do evil, learn to do good; Seek justice, rebuke the oppressor, obtain justice for the orphan, plead for the widow’s case”.
We need to have our hands ready to do the work that God has planned for us. Therefore, James says, “Cleanse your hand, you sinners…” To cleanse the hands was symbolic of being considered clean from some wrongdoing (see Matthew 27:24, where Pilate washed his hands and said that he wanted the blood of Jesus to be charged to those shouting to have Him crucified) We need to have clean hands, but this is only possible because of the blood that Jesus shed on the cross.
If you are coming to God for the first time, the true cleansing takes place in our baptism for the remission of sins (Acts 2:38; I Peter 3:21). We are seeking a good conscience before God. If you are repenting of some sin as a child of God, the cleansing takes place in our prayer to God and confession of sins as the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us again from all unrighteousness (I John 1:9). The Bible makes it clear that God wants us to have clean hands and a pure heart in order to be prepared to approach His holy hill. Sins separate us from God, so the removal of sin brings us near to God.
STEP 5: Purify your hearts
This purity of heart has little to do with clean arteries that are connected to the blood pump in your chest. To purify your heart, you must purify your innermost being. We need to purify the way that we think. We are often told to guard our heart for out of it spring the issues of life. We are taught that every word that proceeds from a man comes from what fills his heart. Even the deeds that we do will reveal the level of purity in the inner man.
We know that James is talking about our minds. He states, “Purify your hearts, you double-minded”. To be double-minded is to be divided in the way that we think and act (See James 1:8). Purity has a single train of thought. Those who want to live in and of the world while somehow hoping to remain pure in the eyes of God are sadly mistaken. While we must live in the world, we must not live like the world. Our purity is seen because while we live in this dark sinful world, we remain undefiled, unspotted, and shine as a bright light of hope and healing for those around us. We reflect the image of Christ and the glory of God.
STEP 6: Mourn over sinfulness
This practice of being miserable, mourning, and weeping was a common practice among people in the faith. For example in Isaiah 22:12, the Bible says, “Therefore in that day the Lord GOD of hosts called [you] to weeping, to wailing, to shaving the head and to wearing sackcloth.” Go back into the Old Testament and see how many of the servants of God spent time in sackcloth and ashes, grieving and mourning over the error of their ways or seeking God because of some calamity that entered their life. Today, this is a very uncommon practice. People believe that our aim in life is to be happy. James says rather,
“let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom.”
Sometimes we need to feel the weight of our sin and how it has hurt our holy God. This is not the only place in the New Testament that this teaching appears. For example, Jesus said that we are blessed if we mourn for then we shall be comforted. Unfortunately, many people do everything that they can to be comfortable while living in sin and never turn to mourn. While James is not asking us to develop a lifestyle of mourning, he is showing us how to work through the process of repentance from reliance upon the world to reliance on God. Joy is a mark of the Christian life, even in the face of trials. In James 1:2, we learned, “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials…”. James is talking about a period where we need to set joy and happiness aside and face the heaviness of our sins and seek God through tears. We cheated on God, we caused Him grief by our trespasses, and we need to have godly sorrow that brings about repentance (see II Cor. 7:10).
STEP 7: Remain humble in the presence of God
Continual humility before God is a quality that we cannot allow to escape us as children of God. In Matthew 23:12, Jesus said,
“Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled; and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted.”
If God has forgiven us of our sins, we have nothing to boast about except the cross of Jesus and His death, burial, and resurrection. We must always live in a state of humility, realizing that the error we once knew could easily creep into our lives again. God is merciful and loving and that is the only reason we are forgiven. We need to humbly take responsibility for our sins. In Psalm 51:4 for example, David says, “Against You, You only, I have sinned And done what is evil in Your sight, So that You are justified when You speak And blameless when You judge.” That is humility!
Another example that we are familiar with is the story of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15:18-23, “I will get up and go to my father, and will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me as one of your hired men.’ So he got up and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion [for him,] and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his slaves, 'Quickly bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet; and bring the fattened calf, kill it, and let us eat and celebrate.” Humility leads to a celebration in heaven over one sinner that repents. This son was lost but now he is found. Rejoice!
Our goal should be to walk humbly with our God and allow Him to grant us any praise or exultation. Do not try to exalt yourself. Do not seek praise from men. Since we are always in the presence of God, we remain humble. Again, while this might sound like submitting to God or drawing near to God, this is a separate step in the process. Humility is the ongoing practice of submitting and drawing near to God.
Friendship with God should impact our fellowship with brethren (vs. 11-12)
11 Do not speak against one another, brethren. He who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks against the law and judges the law; but if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge of it. 12 There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and to destroy; but who are you who judge your neighbor?
We cannot speak against our brethren.
There is a tendency when members of the church are being influenced by the world of sin to turn against our brethren. It might be that a brother or sister could be rebuking us for some error in our life that we have allowed to defile us and instead of repenting, we want to get mad and try to find fault in them. It could be that if we spend enough time in the world, we will begin allowing the attitudes and behaviors of the world to slowly infiltrate the church and cause us to turn on other brothers and sisters in Christ. Another example would include someone that has decided to act carnally, and they choose friendship with the world, but in order to cover up their own sin, they try to cast guilt or project their own error onto another fellow Christian.
James squashes this mindset and any associated sinful behavior against fellow believers. He tells them not to speak against one another. Paul taught us in Ephesians 4:31-32,
“Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.”
(See also I Peter 2:1)
If we speak against brethren, we speak against the law.
The reason that we should not speak against a brother or sister in Christ or judge them is that it causes us to speak against the law. This is not the law of Moses, but the law of Christ or as James referred to it earlier, the law of liberty (See James 1:25). Yes, it is true that if the Law of Moses was in view that you would also be violating that Law. But the Law was summed up in two commands. Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. This certainly applies to brethren. We are under a new covenant of love in Christ.
The truth is that this Law of Moses was fulfilled by Jesus with His death, burial, and resurrection. The law we are under today is the law of Christ. So how is it that we speak against the law when we speak against our brethren? Simply put, Jesus said the new commandment that He gave to us was to love one another just as He has loved us. Backbiting, gossip, slander, malice, etc. will never help us to fulfill the law of our Lord. In Galatians 6:1-2, Paul admonished the church,
“Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; [each one] looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ.”
If we judge one another, we judge the law and are not a doer of the law.
James adds that not only do we speak against the law but that we also judge the law and are not a doer of it when we criticize our brothers and sisters in Christ. Since we have all sinned and from time to time slip back into falling short of the glory of God, we have no right to stand and judge anyone. Our only function here is to rely on the grace of God to save us and extend that grace to everyone around us, especially our brothers and sisters in Christ who are not perfect, just forgiven.
We need to be doers of the law. James spent the better part of chapter 2 in his letter, showing the brethren how faith without works is dead. While we have plenty of work to do to serve God and one another, one role that we have not been appointed to do is to be the judge over other Christians.
There is only one Lawgiver and Judge
James concludes, “There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and to destroy; but who are you who judge your neighbor?” Since it is the law of Christ, we need to let Him be the Judge. God can save your soul or destroy both body and soul in hell. In Matthew 10:28, Jesus said,
“Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”
We need Him to be a Savior. You do not want to face the judgment throne, unsaved and unprepared. You also want to avoid being too judgmental of others because it is only by the grace of God that you are who you are today. In Romans 2:1 Paul said to brethren, “Therefore you have no excuse, every one of you who passes judgment, for, in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things.” In Romans 14:4, Paul adds, “Who are you to judge the servant of another? To his own master, he stands or falls; and he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.” Sometimes we like to play judge, but that is not a function in the body of Christ.
The Bible reminds us that the same measure that we use to judge others will be used to measure us. Jesus said in Matthew 7:1-2, “Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.” Therefore, it is best to leave the judgment to the Lord. God has appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through His Son, Jesus the Christ. In Acts. 17:30-31, we read,
“Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all [people] everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead."
Are you ready for that day to come?
If you are not a Christian, a child of God, we want to rejoice with you in your decision to put your faith in Jesus, repent of your sins, confess that Jesus is Lord, and be baptized for the remission of sins. After you come up out of the waters of baptism you are saved, a new creature in Christ and you can walk humbly with the Lord serving Him faithfully for the remainder of your days on earth. Those that do this are promised a crown of life and an eternal home with God.
If you are a Christian, but you are struggling with some shortcomings in your life, you are not alone. We all live in this crazy world and we face the same gauntlet of temptation and trials seeking to do our best to maintain our devotion to Christ. If you need prayers or some spiritual encouragement, please do not hesitate to reach and ask for prayers. We are not here to judge but to help.
Please let me know how I can help?