Heavenly wisdom
This week is on James 3:13-18
Bitter envy comes from thinking you deserve better than you do, and that someone else's fortune is necessarily at your expense. If you're not the smartest or wealthiest guy, but think you should be, any time someone else displays wealth or intelligence, you will find yourself getting angry. You will resent them for having what they have, or you will resent God for not giving you the same thing, and it will hinder your relationships. It will keep you grumpy and disconnected, and it may result in you treating others badly.
Selfish ambition is different from normal ambition. It also comes from thinking you deserve better than you do, but it leads you to try to take it, rather than just being bitter about it. It's not bad to be ambitious. There are lots of things we could do better at, have more of, or otherwise improve upon. People should be ambitious.
Selfish ambition is a different thing. If you have selfish ambition, you will throw anyone under the bus to get what you want. You will cheat your own family just to get that promotion or that bigger paycheck. You will spend your kids' college money to get to be the best golfer in town. If you volunteer, it's so people will see you helping people out, and think what a good person you are. If you study the Bible, it's so that you can find that one obscure passage nobody else teaches on, or so that you can memorize bits and pieces to use in dominating other Christians in arguments. If you pray, you pray just a bit longer and louder so that everyone can see how very spiritual you are. If you fast, you make sure everyone knows you are fasting and how very long it's been since you've eaten. Every bit of spare energy and resources God gives you gets spent on enlarging your influence and reputation. That's selfish ambition.
So, what's the harm in bitter envy and selfish ambition? They idolize the self. When everyone's random actions are about you, because you're bitterly envious, you can't share in others' blessings. You can't praise God and rejoice with them, because you're thinking about what you lack. You may even try to sabotage what God has given them, and steal His blessing from them. That causes disorder in relationships. Evil comes from this. When you're busy focusing on how to get ahead, you may be doing everything you can to put others behind. Jesus put himself at the bottom. If you're clamouring for the top, taking the double portion for yourself, and stepping on the hands and necks of your brothers to get to the prize, you're moving in the opposite direction of the Jesus you're claiming to follow.
So what does wisdom look like? It's gentle and generous. It's merciful, honest, and agreeable. It produces others like it. It's bigger than "me" and "now." It's at peace.
Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.This is part of James' "forwarded email" to the Christians of his day. James shared some of his wisdom in the hopes of helping other people to be wise. The unwise things that James addresses, bitter envy and selfish ambition, are hard to spot from the outside. They require us to examine ourselves.But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.
Bitter envy comes from thinking you deserve better than you do, and that someone else's fortune is necessarily at your expense. If you're not the smartest or wealthiest guy, but think you should be, any time someone else displays wealth or intelligence, you will find yourself getting angry. You will resent them for having what they have, or you will resent God for not giving you the same thing, and it will hinder your relationships. It will keep you grumpy and disconnected, and it may result in you treating others badly.
Selfish ambition is different from normal ambition. It also comes from thinking you deserve better than you do, but it leads you to try to take it, rather than just being bitter about it. It's not bad to be ambitious. There are lots of things we could do better at, have more of, or otherwise improve upon. People should be ambitious.
Selfish ambition is a different thing. If you have selfish ambition, you will throw anyone under the bus to get what you want. You will cheat your own family just to get that promotion or that bigger paycheck. You will spend your kids' college money to get to be the best golfer in town. If you volunteer, it's so people will see you helping people out, and think what a good person you are. If you study the Bible, it's so that you can find that one obscure passage nobody else teaches on, or so that you can memorize bits and pieces to use in dominating other Christians in arguments. If you pray, you pray just a bit longer and louder so that everyone can see how very spiritual you are. If you fast, you make sure everyone knows you are fasting and how very long it's been since you've eaten. Every bit of spare energy and resources God gives you gets spent on enlarging your influence and reputation. That's selfish ambition.
So, what's the harm in bitter envy and selfish ambition? They idolize the self. When everyone's random actions are about you, because you're bitterly envious, you can't share in others' blessings. You can't praise God and rejoice with them, because you're thinking about what you lack. You may even try to sabotage what God has given them, and steal His blessing from them. That causes disorder in relationships. Evil comes from this. When you're busy focusing on how to get ahead, you may be doing everything you can to put others behind. Jesus put himself at the bottom. If you're clamouring for the top, taking the double portion for yourself, and stepping on the hands and necks of your brothers to get to the prize, you're moving in the opposite direction of the Jesus you're claiming to follow.
So what does wisdom look like? It's gentle and generous. It's merciful, honest, and agreeable. It produces others like it. It's bigger than "me" and "now." It's at peace.
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