James 4:1-3 From where come wars and fights among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?… 1. By grieving the Spirit through not feeling our need of His assistance. 2. By lack of reverence. 3. By praying with a fretful and complaining spirit. 4. By thinking more of self them of God. 5. By a want of definiteness. 6. By the absence of earnest desire. 7. By impenitence. 8. By unwillingness to have our prayer answered. We pray for the generous loving Spirit of Christ; then we remember a rival in business, or an enemy who has wronged us — and the spirit of prayer is gone. 9. By being in too great a hurry when we pray. "Fall on your knees, and grow there," says one who has tested the worth of prayer. 10. By neglecting to maintain a state of prayer. The spirit of prayer, like a silvery stream, must run all through our daily life. 11. Through want of co-operation with God in bringing the answer to our own prayer. You pray for the conversion of sinners. Are you living before them in a way that they may have occasion to glorify God? What have you given for the conversion of the heathen? I once endeavoured to secure five hundred dollars from a man in Boston for the work among the heathen. He told me he would make it a subject of prayer. A few days afterwards I saw him, and he gave me one hundred dollars. Theft same man, a little later, built a residence for seventy-five thousand dollars, and furnished it for one-third as much more. You pray for your city's welfare. How did you vote? (J. A. M. Chapman, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? |
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