Scripture: James 4:1-10

Are you living in the midst of conflict? The price of conflict with our fellow man is high. Divorce, job loss, friendships broken, even our wars and our nation's ills are a result, to a degree, of personal conflict. In this message, Dr. Merritt explains that the book of James has much to day on the issue of personal conflict. James doesn’t mince words and he doesn’t waste time. He gets right to the heart of the problem. He says right up front that a big part, if not the major cause, of conflict between you and someone else, is not the conflict that is going on between you, but the conflict that is going on within you. It comes from our desires. Conflict, according to James, has a way of revealing whether or not our faith is real. Real faith handles conflict by surrendering that conflict to God.

"Let me tell you something you will learn if you live long enough. The vast majority of things that we argue about and fight about and quarrel about really aren’t worth fighting about, quarreling about and arguing about, but at least be honest enough to evaluate the fact that many times, if not most times, you do have a part in the conflict." --Dr. Merritt

Keywords: faith, works, hate, hurt, pain, Hatfields, McCoys, violence, war, crime, conflict, quarrel, distrust, desires, cause, blame, lawyer, Achilles Heel