“For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.” (James 3:16)
Do you have a picture in your head now of what worldly “wisdom” is, what worldliness is? We’ve looked at how James describes it – envy and selfish ambition. Put another way, this “wisdom” is about defining success by getting what I want most out of life.
One reason that fails is the same reason a basketball team fails when the players are more interested in their own stats than they are in winning the game. Nobody passes. Nobody plays defense. Everybody shoots the ball every time they get it. That is disorder. And that team loses the game almost every time, even if one or two players “succeed” in getting high scores.
The other problem with defining success by getting my way is that I’m more and more willing to do “whatever it takes” to get my way. If the choice is between hurting you and succeeding by getting what I want, I can get used to the idea of hurting you. I can get used to the idea of all kinds of evil if the other option is “losing” at life.
Think: Can you think of any examples of disorder and evil in our world that seem to come from a worldly definition of success? What would be the opposite of this definition of success?
Pray: Ask God to help you not to live according to the world’s definition of self-serving success.
Do: Write down a number between 1 (low) and 10 (high) describing how committed you are to getting what you want out of life. Then write a number rating how committed you are to accomplishing what God wants with your life.