Dr Paul Allen

happiness (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) James is sometimes called the " New Testament book of Proverbs." That's because of passages such as James 4 that give us a series of loosely linked aphorisms of practical, godly wisdom. This chapter begins with our universal concern about conflict: What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend on your passions. (James 4:1-3) The world is marked by warfare. There's global war and national conflict; there's warfare in the church; there's warfare in the community; there's warfare in the home—there's conflict all around us. James says that these quarrels, fights, disputes, and contentions come from within, from the fallenness of our hearts. The mot