James 4:1-17

Our walk with Christ is one that is full of things that we must strive to do and things that we must avoid doing.  These are not things that we do in order to gain merit with God but they are things that we do or avoid doing so that our lives will work according to the way that God has planned for us to do.  It makes a lot of sense to order our lives according to the pattern that our creator has designed.
GOD WANTS US TO BE SEPARATE FROM SIN: Sin so often promises pleasures but in the end it causes heartache and pain.  God has created us to be holy as He is holy.  We often deceive ourselves into believing that our pleasure is the most important thing to us and we are willing to sin against God and others in order to achieve whatever we want.  When we seek our own satisfaction as our highest goal and believe that we can attain our own satisfaction through our own efforts we will sin.  God asks us to trust Him and simply ask Him to accomplish His will in our lives.  This is the true path of satisfaction.  We will really only be truly satisfies when we do His will and turn our backs on sin.  If we trust Him we will ask Him and we will honor His will above our own desires.
GOD WANTS US TO BE SUBMISSIVE TO THE SAVIOR: God is over us and He wants us to humble ourselves under His will.  If His desire is our desire we will be drawn to Him.  He is our leader and calls us to follow Him.  God wants us to be pure and holy and if we consider His will as more important than our will we will be both humble and submissive.
GOD WANTS US TO BE SENSATIVE IN OUR SPEECH: The way that we talk to one another is important to the Lord.  He wants us to use our words a source of encouragement to other people.  We are not called to judge and condemn one another but we are called to love God and one another.  God is the only judge and the one who has set the standards.  We have no right to condemn our brothers through our speech.  He has called us to be sensitive to Him and to the people He has put around us.
GOD WANTS US TO BE SINCERE IN OUR STEPS: We often think that we are in control of the steps we take in life.  We arrogantly make plans and we have our programs that we like to think we can control.  This is pure arrogance.  We must know that God is in control of all of our circumstances and He will decide what happens in our lives.  We must honor Him in our lives by recognizing that our every step and every breath is completely dependent upon His will and His grace.  We will do well to do right by staying is step with the Spirit of God.

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