James 4:1

The Passion Translation

What is the cause of your conflicts and quarrels with each other? Doesn’t the battle begin inside of you as you fight to have your own way and fulfill your own desires?

Cross References

Jeremiah 17:9

There is nothing more deceitful than the heart of man; who can understand it? Man’s heart is sick, in need of healing.

Matthew 15:19

You will find living within an impure heart evil ideas, murderous thoughts, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, lies, and slander.

John 8:44

“You are the offspring of your father, the devil, and you serve your father very well, passionately carrying out his desires. He’s been a murderer right from the start! He never stood with the truth, for he’s full of nothing but lies—lying is his native tongue. He is a master of deception and the father of lies!

Romans 7:23

But I discern another power operating in my humanity, waging a war against the moral principles of my conscience and bringing me into captivity as a prisoner to the “law” of sin—this unwelcome intruder in my humanity.

Romans 7:5

When we were merely living natural lives, the law, through defining sin, actually awakened sinful desires within us, which resulted in bearing the fruit of death.

Romans 8:7

In fact, the mind-set focused on the flesh fights God’s plan and refuses to submit to his direction, because it cannot!

Galatians 5:17

When your self-life craves the things that offend the Holy Spirit you hinder him from living free within you! And the Holy Spirit’s intense cravings hinder your self-life from dominating you! So then, the two incompatible and conflicting forces within you are your self-life of the flesh and the new creation life of the Spirit.

Colossians 3:5

Live as one who has died to every form of sexual sin and impurity. Live as one who has died to the desires for forbidden things, including the desire for wealth, which is the essence of idol worship.

2 Timothy 2:23

Stay away from all the foolish arguments of the immature, for these disputes will only generate more conflict.

Titus 3:3

For it wasn’t that long ago that we behaved foolishly in our stubborn disobedience. We were easily led astray as slaves to worldly passions and pleasures. We wasted our lives in doing evil, and with hateful jealousy we hated others.

Titus 3:9

But avoid useless controversies, genealogies, pointless quarrels, and arguments over the law, which will get you nowhere.

James 1:14

Instead it is each person’s own desires and thoughts that drag them into evil and lure them away into darkness.

James 4:3

And if you ask, you won’t receive it for you’re asking with corrupt motives, seeking only to fulfill your own selfish desires.

1 Peter 1:14

As God’s obedient children, never again shape your lives by the desires that you followed when you didn’t know better.

1 Peter 2:11

My divinely loved friends, since you are resident aliens and foreigners in this world, I appeal to you to divorce yourselves from the evil desires that wage war within you.

2 Peter 2:18

They spout off with their grandiose, impressive nonsense. Consumed with the lusts of the flesh, they lure back into sin those who recently escaped from their error.

2 Peter 3:3

Above all, you must understand that in the last days mockers will multiply, chasing after their evil desires.