James 3:16:
“…where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and ever vile practice.”
We ask ourselves about some chronic sin, ‘why do I keep doing this?’, we look at our churches and say, ‘why don’t we look anything like the faithful depicted in scripture’, we look at our culture and our corporations and wonder, ‘why does that happen?’.
‘That lawsuit is just greedy.’
‘She hit me with her car, why is she yelling?’
‘Why isn’t he there for his kids?’
‘Why can’t he spend even one night without getting drunk and passing out?’
Sin has its roots in our personal and pervasive commitment to our own ambition. From the very first sin beneath that tree, it was only considering ourselves that lead us to neglect God and the purposes he had designed for us. And it continues today in every country, culture, people group, family and individual. Even the church. It is the personal commitment to self and our ambitions that leads to ‘disorder and every vile practice.’
I’ve often spoken to people frustrated by their inability to stop sinning. I sympathize because in so many ways, I suffer the same frustration.
The total message of James, and the frequently overlooked solution, I believe is this: We must see and trust God’s grace, and we must meet that with our own personal commitment to selflessness.
James 1:27:
“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans, and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”
As we know from the whole of scripture, by trusting God’s grace, we have the power to live a religion undefiled before God, and by our own commitment to selflessness, our actions, by the same grace of God, begin to fall in line with those of God’s desire.
Of course, that is all much easier written that worked. It’s a good thing grace is the much greater part, no matter what it’s contrasted with.

