Tues 30th June – James 4:4-6:

Tues 30^th June  –  Read James 4:4-6:

V4: Spiritual adultery – often God’s charge against His people in the OT – is professing to know and serve God while letting other things have the place in our hearts and lives that should be His alone. In OT Israel’s case it sometimes meant literally serving ” other gods” but here James is speaking of conformity to the ways and desires of the unbelieving world, and so to cultivate a relationship that makes them unfaithful to God, and so at enmity with Him.

V5-6:  The “quotation” of v5 is in fact not a specific OT verse, but seems to be offered as a summary of what God’s Word teaches about such “spiritual adultery” – that the Lord is a “jealous God” in that He will not share His people’s hearts with another – those He has given His Holy Spirit to dwell within them. Yet in our weakness and all too common proneness to such divided hearts, there is the wonderful promise of v6 “ He gives more grace!” – grace that we do not deserve, but which is all-sufficient. But proud hearts that seek their own will, not His, will not know the experience of that grace. We must come to Him in humble faith to receive the fullness of His supply.