James 4: 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. 
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Painted by Tarayn 2011
The verse first says “You do not have because you do not ask God.” I feel in my life this refers to my prayer time with God. How many times have you gone through difficult situations in our lives without prayer? We may look back and think about how useful it would have been to pray; but how often do we fall on our knees before the Lord in the midst of the trial.
My next questions is, "I have prayed and the Lord didn't answer my prayers." His response here is: “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” Why do we pray and the outcome that we prayed for did not happen? In James 4:4 I found an answer, if we ask “according to His will, He hears us.” This year I'm committed to praying according to God’s will instead of praying to fulfill my own desires. What does it mean to "pray according to the will of God"? I referenced back to John 15:16 when he deals with the issue of prayer. God gave prayer to the disciples because Jesus had given them a mission to accomplish. God designed prayer and gives it to us to use to accomplish our God missions. I'm committed to turn my prayer life into a means of accomplishing my God mission and to glorify God. Psalms 37:4, "Take delight in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." He will give you the desires of your heart, but, only if you are delighting in the Lord in the first place. Psalms 40:8, "I delight to do thy will oh God, thy law is within my heart."
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