James 4:6-10
Today's Passage: James 4:6-10
If you’ve never seen Tim Urban’s TED Talk on procrastination, you really should. In his TED Talk he illustrates how we all have a tiny man at the steering wheel of our brain called “rational decision maker.” Rational decision maker does a great job piloting our brain until he gets disrupted by the “gratification monkey" that comes in a makes a wreck out of rational decision maker’s plans. You have to watch the TED Talk for more on that.
Urban’s TED Talk obviously takes a very secular view of the human mind and will. However, that image of the gratification monkey has always stuck with me. When I read yesterday’s passage, James 4:1–5, I cannot help but think of how our need for gratification (our gratification monkey) insidiously causes us to crave things contrary to God’s best.
Feeding our gratification monkey is dangerous because, “Friendship with the world is enmity with God” (James 4:4). That’s the “so what.” As we open our passage today, James gives us the “now what.” In four of the five verses today, James gives 10 imperatives—commands for us to follow—listed and underlined below for clarity.
God understands our weakness. Our imperfection doesn’t seem to be the primary issue, it’s our stubborn pride in our imperfection that seems to really frustrate the Almighty. “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” We will face temptation. We will stub our toe. It’s what we do when we mess up that matters. So, what does this kind of humility look like?
Submit yourselves therefore to God.
Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.
Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and
purify your hearts, you double-minded.
Be wretched
and mourn
and weep.
Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.
Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
I don’t know about you, but when I read this list of things to do, it’s heavy. However, in my devotional the other day, it challenged us with the idea that many of us are far too easily satisfied in our Christianity. We are satisfied to do good and be good—but our goodness is measured when compared to others or what we think the Bible says. We satisfy ourselves with morals and happy lives, rather than a personal, abiding walk with Christ. We often want the fruit of the abundant life in Christ, rather than Christ himself.
Are we submitting ourselves to him? Are we resisting sin and the devil? Are we wretched, mournful, and weeping? When is the last time our sin or the sin of others broke us to the point of tears? It’s ok to laugh and have fun in life as we saw recently in Ecclesiastes. Yet, James reminds us of the sober-mindedness and weight of living in a lost and fallen world. If our “laughter and joy” is found through sin, it would be better for us to live in “mourning and gloom.”
Our gratification monkeys do not want us to live this way. This kind of consistent sobriety about life runs contrary to its fun-loving ways. Joy is a Fruit of the Spirit, but untamed gratification will never produce that fruit. Instead, let us “humble [ourselves] before the Lord, and he will exalt.”
Written By: Tyler Short
If you’ve never seen Tim Urban’s TED Talk on procrastination, you really should. In his TED Talk he illustrates how we all have a tiny man at the steering wheel of our brain called “rational decision maker.” Rational decision maker does a great job piloting our brain until he gets disrupted by the “gratification monkey" that comes in a makes a wreck out of rational decision maker’s plans. You have to watch the TED Talk for more on that.
Urban’s TED Talk obviously takes a very secular view of the human mind and will. However, that image of the gratification monkey has always stuck with me. When I read yesterday’s passage, James 4:1–5, I cannot help but think of how our need for gratification (our gratification monkey) insidiously causes us to crave things contrary to God’s best.
Feeding our gratification monkey is dangerous because, “Friendship with the world is enmity with God” (James 4:4). That’s the “so what.” As we open our passage today, James gives us the “now what.” In four of the five verses today, James gives 10 imperatives—commands for us to follow—listed and underlined below for clarity.
God understands our weakness. Our imperfection doesn’t seem to be the primary issue, it’s our stubborn pride in our imperfection that seems to really frustrate the Almighty. “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” We will face temptation. We will stub our toe. It’s what we do when we mess up that matters. So, what does this kind of humility look like?
Submit yourselves therefore to God.
Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.
Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and
purify your hearts, you double-minded.
Be wretched
and mourn
and weep.
Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.
Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
I don’t know about you, but when I read this list of things to do, it’s heavy. However, in my devotional the other day, it challenged us with the idea that many of us are far too easily satisfied in our Christianity. We are satisfied to do good and be good—but our goodness is measured when compared to others or what we think the Bible says. We satisfy ourselves with morals and happy lives, rather than a personal, abiding walk with Christ. We often want the fruit of the abundant life in Christ, rather than Christ himself.
Are we submitting ourselves to him? Are we resisting sin and the devil? Are we wretched, mournful, and weeping? When is the last time our sin or the sin of others broke us to the point of tears? It’s ok to laugh and have fun in life as we saw recently in Ecclesiastes. Yet, James reminds us of the sober-mindedness and weight of living in a lost and fallen world. If our “laughter and joy” is found through sin, it would be better for us to live in “mourning and gloom.”
Our gratification monkeys do not want us to live this way. This kind of consistent sobriety about life runs contrary to its fun-loving ways. Joy is a Fruit of the Spirit, but untamed gratification will never produce that fruit. Instead, let us “humble [ourselves] before the Lord, and he will exalt.”
Written By: Tyler Short
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