Once again, Self

    I thought I got it that James says we're living for our self. Or rather, I guess I thought he was saying YOU'RE living for your self. It took me another time through the book to see that he was saying I am living for MY self.
     And even though I asked the question, "Is there a different between selfish and self?" I did not understand it. If I want something and you want something, and I do what I want instead, that's selfish, right?  But somehow that doesn't seem reasonable. If I do what you want, doesn't that make you selfish? And why should you always get what you want? It's easy to see WHY James isn't going that direction with his teaching.
     He sets self in opposition to God! If I want something, but God wants something.... well of course what He wants should happen. Getting that less than perfect and often annoying middle man out of the picture makes it much more clear.
     This is an entirely different thing than being selfish. The question is whether you are living for self. I KNOW I said that when we were studying chapter 4 but I didn't get it.
     God's been after me though. Fighting and quarreling come from wanting your own way, James says. Well, I've done enough fighting and quarreling that I finally started to consider whether having things my way was really that important to me. Maybe not. Maybe a lot of stuff I thought was important wasn't. Maybe I was just in the habit of living for my Self.
      James says we are can't be both friend of God and friend of the world, logos, the world system. John tells us what that is; we talked about it before. John 2:15.. "Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world-the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life--comes not from the Father but from the world." 
     James agrees with John. Worldly wisdom is characterized by envy and selfish ambition. It is in direct contrast to heavenly wisdom, which is FIRST OF ALL PURE.... undivided in it's submission to God. Then, after that focus is determined, the character that flows out of the "fountain" is peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.
     You know, I think I'd rather live that life than the fighting and quarreling one.
      I had a chance to share some of this with someone yesterday and I was well aware my husband was listening while I was speaking. It's easy to talk about it. He lives with me. I had to ask him if he could see that I was getting it.
      He said he could see a difference. "Night and Day" he said. 😢