"Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? You lust and do not have. You murder and covet
and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures."
(James 4:1-3)
James here wrote about the destructive desires that make for conflict among people, including the people of God.
He first reminded us of the fact of conflict. Then he exposed the reason for the conflict: the frustrated desire for pleasure that brings us into battle with one another.
Then James explained the reason for the frustrated, destructive desires among the followers of Jesus:
"Yet you do not have because you do not ask."
The reason these destructive desires exist among Christians is that they do not seek God for their needs (you do not ask).
James reminds us here of the great power of prayer, and why one may live unnecessarily as a spiritual pauper simply because they do not pray, or do not ask when they pray.
We might state it as a virtual spiritual law; that God does not give unless we ask. If we possess little of God and His Kingdom, almost certainly we have asked little. We expect little of God and ask for little from God, and we are answered according to our expectations and asking.
After dealing with the problem of no prayer, now James addressed the problem of selfish prayer: "You ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures." These are when they did ask, they asked God with purely selfish motives.
It is seen even more clearly when we look at the word James used, translated here as "spend."
It is the same verb used to describe the wasteful spending of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15:14.
Destructive desires persist even if we pray, because our prayers may be self-centered and self-indulgent.
We must remember that the purpose of prayer is not to persuade a reluctant God to do our bidding.
The purpose of prayer is to align our will with His, and in partnership with Him, to ask Him to accomplish His will on this earth(Matthew 6:10).
When we guard ourselves against the danger of no prayer, and then against the danger of selfish prayer, then we are ready to pray – and to receive. As we pray and receive, the destructive presence of frustrated desire fades away, and we are in the right frame of mind and spirit to get along with others. Then, it is just up to us to pray – and to remember the great power and privilege there is in prayer.
That great preacher of Victorian England, Charles Spurgeon, said it eloquently: "If you may have everything by asking, and nothing without asking, I beg you to see how vital prayer is, and I beseech you to abound in it. . . . Do you know, brothers, what great things are to be had for the asking? Have you ever thought of it?
Does it not stimulate you to pray fervently? All heaven lies before the grasp of the asking man; all the promises of God are rich and inexhaustible, and their fulfillment is to be had by prayer."
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