Humble yourselves (James 4)

I've been enjoying a Bible study at College Wesleyan Church walking through the book of James. We read through James 4 last night. What wonderful truths in this chapter!  Here were just some of the reminders:

• The battles and conflicts we have with each other are often battles between the sinful desires in me and the sinful desires in you.
• If we pray, "if the Lord wills," then God will answer every one of our prayers.
• Friendship with the world is not about whether you are in the world or not. It's about loving the world, where the world is selfish desire, a love of possessions, inappropriate objects of desire, etc...
• Humbling ourselves should be easy in the presence of God. What better way to get an accurate picture of ourselves than to put ourselves in the presence of God regularly? Prayer as a path to humility by focusing on an accurate sense of the one to whom we are praying!
• The paragraph about saying, "If the Lord wills" we will do such and such is a great discipline. What if we recognized in every act of our will and decision we make that the true course really depends on God's will?
• The comments on judging remind us of the Sermon on the Mount, as other parts of James do. We can't see the inner motives of people and we often don't know the whole situation. The discipline of suspending judgment is the path of Christ.