The Cause and Cure of Conflict

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? (James 4:1 NIV). 

A pastor walking through the lobby of his church saw a young boy staring at the large marble plaque on the wall. Entitled “In Remembrance,” the plaque had two columns of names with a small American flag next to each one. Pointing to the plaque, the boy asked, “Who are these people?” Solemnly, the pastor said, “Johnny, these are the names of the men and women who died in the service.” Swallowing hard, Johnny asked, “Was it the 9:00 or the 11:00 service?”

Attending church can be a dangerous proposition! It takes only a short time to discover that the family of God, like every other family, is often the scene of ugly conflicts where brother fights against brother. Yes, building relationships in the body of Christ is a bit like dancing with porcupines. You have to be careful, or you might get pricked!

Conflict is inherent in all human relationships. You might say that it goes with the territory. Because no two persons are identical, a clash of desires is inevitable. Whether we are talking about marriage, friendship, local government, or international relationships, disagreements are unavoidable. Therefore, the health of a community should not be measured by the presence or the absence of conflict, but rather by how that conflict is managed. 

No passage in the Bible speaks more powerfully about the cause and the cure of conflict than James 4:1-10. Like a skilled doctor looking beyond the outward symptoms of a disease to find its root cause, James digs deep. But he wants to do more than explain why we fight. His real purpose is to point to God’s amazing cure. 

What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Don’t they come from the evil desires at war within you? You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it. And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure. (Jam. 4:1-3 NLT). 

James outlines four ever-deepening levels of the human psyche that help us understand why we want to fight. 

First-level Cause: Unmet Desires

We have conflict on the outside because there is conflict on the inside. We want something, and when we can’t have it, we pick a fight with whoever we think is standing in the way. Whether we are talking about a husband’s desire to watch a football game rather than a Hallmark movie with his wife, or Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, persons fight because they don’t get their own way. “You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it,” (v. 2). 

Second-level Cause: Prayerlessness

But why are our desires unmet? The answer may surprise you. Our desires are unmet because we haven’t prayed. “You don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it” (v. 2). God cares about our needs and wants to be involved in meeting them. But he wants to be asked. As Charles Spurgeon famously said: “Whether we like it or not, asking is the rule of the Kingdom.” But this line of thinking leads logically to a third-level of reflection. What if I do pray and ask God to give me what I want, but he doesn’t answer. What then? 

Third-level Cause: Selfish Ambition

James tells us bluntly that our prayers are unanswered because we “ask amiss” (KJV). Our “motives are all wrong” (v. 3). When we pray selfishly, with worldly ambition and carnal motives, our prayers don’t rise higher than the ceiling. God does not listen to our prayers when our will is not aligned with his. “Don’t you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God?” (v. 4). 

Let’s pause and summarize James’s logic. When selfish ambition is in my heart, then I pray wrongly. When I pray wrongly, my prayers are not answered. When my prayers are not answered, my desires are unmet. And when my desires are unmet, well, I just want to fight somebody! 

This leaves us with one final question: Why, oh why, is my heart filled with selfish ambition and worldliness. Why do I desire what I shouldn’t? Why am I like this???

Fourth-level Cause: Double-mindedness and Pride

James says that the reason we love this world and are consumed with selfish ambition is because we are proud and double-minded. The only remedy for such a disease is to humble ourselves and purify our hearts.

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded… Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. (Jam. 4:7-10 ESV). 

James is telling us that the cure for conflict is entire sanctification. When our hearts are pure and our minds are single, the internal conflict comes to an end as our wills become fully submitted to his. Peace on the inside makes a difference in what happens on the outside! When my heart is sanctified holy, I begin to pray rightly, so that God hears, and answers, my prayers! And when my prayers are answered, my desires are fully satisfied. Ahhh. I no longer want to pick a fight. In fact, I feel like hugging everyone around me! 

Yes, a sanctified heart makes world peace possible. 

Someone needs to explain this to the United Nations!

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