What causes fights and quarrels  among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle  within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill.  You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God.  When you ask, you do not receive,  because you ask with wrong motives,  that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.  

These words are from the Epistle of James chapter 4.  James was thought to be the brother of Jesus so he probably knew him almost all of the days of his life. What better source can we find to discover the true nature of the Christ.  The words above are about the “battle within”.  Yes, we all fight this battle to one degree or another.  We desire to have more than we do. We just can’t get enough. We think things are the answer to being truly happy. Our representative governments kill in our name to get what we collectively want.

Some of the most perplexing words of the Bible indicate that if we are true believers then God will give us whatever we want.  These words ring hollow to me if I don’t add the words here about that topic.  When we ask with self-serving motives in mind then we will NOT receive it from God (but you might from another source) no matter how much faith you have. If you spend what you presently have solely on your own pleasures when your brothers are in need for the basic things in life then you are not following God’s commands. It is as simple as that and James made that abundantly clear in the words above.