Give Yourselves to God

4 Do you know where your fights and arguments come from? They come from the selfish desires that make war inside you. ² You want things, but you do not have them. So you are ready to kill and are jealous of other people. But you still cannot get what you want. So you argue and fight. You do not get what you want because you do not ask God. ³ Or when you ask, you do not receive because the reason you ask is wrong. You want things only so that you can use them for your own pleasures.

⁴ So, you people are not loyal to God! You should know that loving the world is the same as hating God. So if a person wants to be a friend of the world, he makes himself God’s enemy. ⁵ Do you think the Scripture means nothing? It says, “The Spirit that God made to live in us wants us for himself alone.”^{[a] 6} But God gives us even more grace, as the Scripture says,

⁷ So give yourselves to God. Stand against the devil, and the devil will run away from you. ⁸ Come near to God, and God will come near to you. You are sinners. So clean sin out of your lives. You are trying to follow God and the world at the same time. Make your thinking pure. ⁹ Be sad, cry, and weep! Change your laughter into crying. Change your joy into sadness. ¹⁰ Humble yourself before the Lord, and he will honor you.

You Are Not the Judge

¹¹ Brothers, do not say bad things about each other. If you say bad things about your brother in Christ or judge him, then you are saying bad things about the law he follows. You are also judging the law he follows. And when you are judging the law, you are not a follower of the law. You have become a judge! ¹² God is the only One who makes laws, and he is the only Judge. He is the only One who can save and destroy. So it is not right for you to judge your neighbor.

Let God Plan Your Life

¹³ Some of you say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to some city. We will stay there a year, do business, and make money.” ¹⁴ But you do not know what will happen tomorrow! Your life is like a mist. You can see it for a short time, but then it goes away. ¹⁵ So you should say, “If the Lord wants, we will live and do this or that.” ¹⁶ But now you are proud and you brag. All of this bragging is wrong. ¹⁷ And when a person knows the right thing to do, but does not do it, then he is sinning.