Church Kill

For the past few weeks, I have been studying the Scriptures on prayer. When I first read this passage of Scripture in the book of James explaining unanswered prayer, I thought the author was referring to people in the world who call themselves "spiritual," or "God-believers," or even "Christians," but who never go to church regularly, never read the Bible, and certainly never try to live in obedience to God's Word.

However, as I read theses verses again, I realized my misinterpretation, because the book of James is a letter written to the Jerusalem church. James was describing regular church-goers! Shockingly, this is how he characterizes them: quarrelsome, hostile, evil, envious, lustful, devious, murderous, jealous, asking God with wrong motives, and selfish. He calls them adulterers, lovers of the world, and enemies of God.

"What is causing the quarrels and fights among you?

Don't they come from the evil desires at war within you?

You want what you don't have,

so you scheme and kill to get it.

You are jealous of what others have,

but you can't have what you want

because you don't ask God for it.

And even when you ask,

you don't get it

because your motives are all wrong —

you want only what will give you pleasure.

You adulterers!

Don't you realize that friendship with the world

makes you an enemy of God

I say it again:

If you want to be a friend of the world,

you make yourself an enemy of God."

James 4:1-4 (NLT)

Hmm . . . the phrase "kill to get it" got me. Is James alluding to times when church people brutally and critically wound other church people with evil words and actions, causing the wounded to leave the church, abandon their faith, and exit God's Kingdom of eternal life?

Well, churches today are really no different! I mean, how many people do you know who are no longer going to Church or even acknowledging God in their lives because of church kill?

As part of God's church, we need to all constantly check our motives, actions, and words. We need to become separate from the world and lovers only of God.