check yourself

1What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? 2You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. 3When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
4You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. 5Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely?[a] 6But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble."[b]
7Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

Lately God has been showing me a ton about myself, my selfishness, my motives, my ignorance, etc... you get the point. So this morning this was the word that struck home with me as I continue to play merry-go-round in my mind about the importance of struggling well, God's grace, confession, obedience over the long haul, did I mention God's grace... anyway I think you get the picture. Isn't it so easy to fall into complacancy in our walk that we total miss out on our intimacy with our Lord Jesus? Just getting caught up in the everyday things of this life, our routines, work, family... I mean life is noisy and if we are not taking the time or disciplined to have and make time to meditate on God and His goodness and mercy, if we are not taking time to confess and repent of our sins, it's the little things that crept in slowly and begin to kill and snuff out any longing and desires of the Holy Spirit that is within us.

5Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely?

Why do you think Jesus talked about fasting as something that would be done as the norm in the life of a Christian? He knew exactly why he was saying what he was saying, He knew that we would need to arm ourselves with this type of armour along with prayer. Throughout the bible fastings were done with the intent of helping in spiritual matters and purposes, abstaining from food or drink for a time, to set oneself apart to the Lord and to seek him on matters at hand.
What would be some "matters at hand" for us today? What would be reason for us to do as James 4:9-10 tells us to cry out to God and to humble ourselves before him who is worthy?

Some of you may even be thinking why do I need to do that and what benifit is there to always being down and out, crying and mourning about things. What you have to understand is this passage is talking about a repentant heart that is crying out to God for forgivness, not once, but a continual understanding that we must continue to struggle well within ourselves and we do that by continual confession, repentance and moving forward. But most of the time we just dismiss anything that seems really not that big of a deal, right? I mean come on, do I really have to repent over all the little sins of my day? I mean isn't some of that just the way I am and will always be? I'm really not that bad of a person, and when I accepted Christ years ago didn't He cover even my future sins?

Yes, Christ did cover all our sins when He died on that cross for us. The fact of the matter is, is that we still struggle with our sin nature (see Paul in Romans 7, look at all the men and women of God for that matter) and so the question is what do you do with it? Do you dismiss it? Bury it? Ignore it? OR do you confess it to God and somone else? Do you repent and turn in a different direction? Are you obedient of the long-haul?

Are you struggling well, or are you fading into a life of complacency and mediocrity in your life?