Henry Krabbendam - James - World Evangelical Alliance

implied answer indicates thereby that he has not understood a word of James
3:1-4:10. The lethal toxic power of indwelling sin is so great that no believed
truth ever can be and ever will be a functioning truth, unless the believer is a
prayer warrior, in the full recognition that he “does not possess what he does
not pray for” (Jam. 4:2). He acknowledges that he must be in prayer for functioning
truth every time he opens Scripture (Ps. 119:18, 25, 27, 29, 33-38).
Otherwise its content will not lodge in his heart, and he will by definition sin
(Ps. 119:11). He will recognize to his alarm as well that the poisonous power
of indwelling sin prevents him even from the very prayer that is mandated by
God to turn believing truth into functioning truth. This will prompt him to
cast himself upon the Lord until he provides the ability to pray as a means to
experience functioning truth! The upshot of all this is that the believer on his
own and by himself ever was, ever is, and ever will be in a dead-end street.
Only when this penetrates (through prayer) and he humbles himself (through
additional prayer) to nothing, will God lift him up and give him everything
(through unceasing prayer) (Jam. 4:1-10).
All this together prompted me to call this final applicatory statement simultaneously
a sobering warning and a rich encouragement. It constitutes a
sobering warning, “Nothing from Below!” It is at the same time rich encouragement,
“Everything from Above!”
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