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The Cause of Conflict

Quarrels and fights. Sadly, we are all familiar with the painful experience of relational conflict. No one is exempt, even if you are a Christian.

If you don’t find yourself presently involved in a relational conflict, I’m sorry to be the one to inform you that there is a relational conflict in your future. Maybe even today. Now understandably, that’s not what you just wanted to read, but let me direct you to a passage that will most certainly prepare you for your next conflict.

James 4:1-3 exposes the root cause of all our quarrels and fights. In just a few words James helps us to understand why we have conflict and provides us with the wisdom we need to resolve and even avoid conflict with those we love (or anyone for that matter). There is a happy and helpful discovery in these few verses. Why do we quarrel and fight? James tells us why.

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. (James 4:1-3)

This post is adapted from a sermon at Sovereign Grace Church of Louisville entitled “Fights and Quarrels.”