The Wrong Way to Pray
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 it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
James 4:1-4
LifeWay Research reports that of Americans who pray, 21% have asked to win the lottery, 20% have asked for success in something they put no work into, 15% prayed that no one would find out a bad thing they had done, 13% prayed for a sports team to win, 7% prayed for a parking spot, and 5% prayed for someone to get fired. Some of these are simply frivolous while others are certainly wicked. Have you ever asked God for something you knew God wouldn’t approve of? This is not an American problem but a human problem. As we established before, prayer must have God-centered priorities, and yet we as humans must fight very hard not be us-centered. This problem goes back as far as the first century (and beyond) as James addresses it in his letter.
Three problems were present in James’ church (probably in Jerusalem) and each one flowed out of the others. They were arguing and fighting because they had unmet desires and yet they wanted because they never asked God. They never asked God because when they did ask they didn’t receive! What a complicated situation! I think it is best to view their problem visually so I have created a graph to help us out!
From the graph we can see that the church was in a cycle fueled by unmet desires. These desires were so out of hand that they sometimes ended in murder! A desire left to fester will only worsen until it is met with relief. One danger of prayerlessness to note is that if we aren’t asking God for it, we may become tempted to get it on our own (often in a very wicked or selfish way)
Their refusal to pray however was not out of ignorance or apathy, it was because God wasn’t answering their prayers. So is God at fault? If we were given less details, it may seem that way, but James tells us that the problem isn’t that God is against them or depriving them, it is that they are asking wrongly.
In the first article of this series we talked about priority in prayer but I kept away from outright sinful prayers. That is because there is a serious difference between asking selfishly and asking sinfully. Both deserve correcting and hinder a biblical prayer life, but James warns us that sinful prayers lead to prayerlessness. So what were these sinful prayers and desires?
Two things are said about them in this passage. The first is that they were for “spending on your passions”. A good litmus test for prayer requests is “Do I want this for the glory of God or the replacement of God?” or to rephrase “Am I looking for satisfaction/happiness in this thing?” The word for “passions” in the Greek is the word ἡδοναῖς (hedonais) which is where we get the word hedonism which is a worldview dedicated to the pursuit of or devotion to pleasure, especially to the pleasures of the senses. So the question remains is our prayer request for our pleasure and comfort or for God’s glory and honor? This doesn’t mean that we abandon prayers for good friends, good food, and happy homes. Remember in 1 Corinthians 10:31, ” So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God”
The second problem with their desires and requests was that they were worldly. In the New Testament, the word world, κόσμος (kosmos) represented the mentality, structure, worldview, and godless ethics of the world. Essentially, James accuses them of praying the same kind of prayers that a godless person would pray. This is a danger because to be indistinguishable from the world is to be wed to a perishing world.
In conclusion, James reminds us of two essential foundations for prayer. “You do not have, because you do not ask.” and “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.” When you pray to the Lord and make requests are they for your pleasure or His glory? Are they the prayers of this dying world or are they prayers for the dying world? If God has refused to answer your prayers, it may be time to examine whether you are praying rightly. If not, repent and pray with renewed strength knowing your Father gives good gifts, not bad ones. If so, keep praying without ceasing, knowing that the Lord is patient and in control.
As a challenge this week, take some time to examine your prayer requests and ask those probing questions above. Then take some time to pray for God’s glory in ways you often don’t such as for the missionaries, for your lost neighbors, for your close friends to know Christ better and clearer, and certainly for the return of King Jesus.
