(quarrels and fightings) originate among you? Do they not arise

from your sensual desires that are ever warring in bodily members?

You are jealous and covet (what others have) and your desires that go

unfulfilled; so you become murderers. (To hate is to murder as far as

your hearts are concerned.) You burn with envy and anger and are not

able to obtain (the gratification, the contentment, the happiness that you

seek), so you fight and war. You do not have, because you do not ask God.

(I. John 5.15).

When you do ask, you fail to receive, because you ask with wrong purpose

and evil, selfish motives. Your intention is (when you get what you desire)

to spend it in sensual pleasures.

You 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. Or do you think the scripture says without reason that

the spirit He caused to live in us envies intensely? But He gives us more

grace. That is why the scripture says:

“God opposes the proud

but gives grace to the

humble.”

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Come near to God and He will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners,

and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change

your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the

Lord, and He will lift you up.

(James 4.1-10).

HALLELUJAH! THANK YOU LORD JESUS FOREVERMORE!

There is one body and one Spirit, just as there is also

one hope that belongs to the calling you received.

There is one Lord, one faith one baptism, One God

the Father of us all, Who is above all, Sovereign over

all, pervading all and living in us all.

Yet grace (God’s unmerited favor) was given to each

of us individually (not indiscriminately, but in different

ways) in proportion to the measure of Christ’s rich and

bounteous gift. Therefore it is said, When He ascended on

high, He led captivity captive (He led a train of vanquished

foes) and he bestowed gifts on men.(Ephesians 4.4-8).

POINTS FOR PRAISE AND MEDITATION

1) There is one Lord, one Spirit, one body, one faith, one

baptism, one God and Father of us all who is above all,

pervading all and living in us all. HALLELUJAH!

2) Each believer has specifically been blessed with grace,

which is God’s unmerited favor according to the measure

of Christ’s rich gift. The measure is unlimited as we saw in

Ephesians 1.19.

3) The rich gift of Christ is described and predicted by the psalmist

who alludes to God’s Kingdom rule in prophetic and spiritual

ways which cover the past, present and future. This has to do

with each individual Christian and the Church, because this is

the holy place where the Lord dwells.

Here is Psalm 68.13-20):

“Though you (the slackers) may lie among the sheepfolds (in slothful ease,

yet for Israel) the wings of a dove are covered with silver, its pinions

excessively green with gold (trophies recovered from the enemy).

When the Almighty scattered kings in the land, it was as when it snows

on Zalmon (a wooded hill near Shechem).

Is Mount Bashan the high mountain of summits, Mount Bashan the

mount of God? Why do you look with grudging and with envy, you

many-peaked mountains, at the mountain which God has desired for

His dwelling place? Yes, the Lord will dwell in it forever.

The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands upon

thousands. The Lord is among them as He was in Sinai, in the

Holy Place.

YOU HAVE ASCENDED ON HIGH. YOU HAVE LED AWAY CAPTIVE

A TRAIN OF VANQUISHED FOES. YOU HAVE RECEIVED GIFTS OF

MEN, YES of the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell there

with them.

Blessed be the Lord, who bears our burdens and carries us day by day,

the God Who is our salvation! Selah (pause and calmly think of that)!

God is to us a God of deliverances and salvation and to God the Lord

belongs escape from death (setting us free).

4) Here in this psalm the Lord Who bears our burdens, whose

burden is easy and burden is light Jesus the Christ is the One

Who delivers and sets us free from sin and death, our God Who is

our salvation. The very name Jesus literally means (God Who IS

Salvation).

5) St. Paul in a turn of the phrase states that Jesus Christ led

captivity captive and bestowed gifts to humanity. This is different from

the context of the psalm where a train of captives were being led and the

Lord received gifts of men.

When the Lord led captivity captive He destroyed the power the

devil which kept  mankind captive to the  fear of death. This is

explained here by the author of Hebrews:

” Since, therefore His children share in flesh and blood, He himself

in asimilar manner partook of the same nature, that by going through

death He might bring to nought and make of no effect him who had the

power of death, that is the devil-

And also that He might deliver and completely set free all those who

through the haunting fear of death were held in bondage throughout

the course of their lives. “(Hebrews 2. 14& 15).

In the psalm He receives gifts. In Ephesians St. Paul is saying that

the Lord gives each believer individual spiritual gifts.

HALLELUJAH! THANK YOU LORD JESUS FOREVERMORE!