“You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it. 3 And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure.

 You adulterers! Don’t you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God? I say it again: If you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God.  Do you think the Scriptures have no meaning?” (James 4:2-5 NLT)

In context of me teaching about faith and prayer by quoting Vincent Cheung, I received an insane attack against this doctrine. Jesus was the most extreme faith teacher ever. He said if you ask for something, then you get it. Jesus said, You ask it, you get it. No word of faith preacher is more extreme than Jesus. He said this in many ways, over and over, as if He knew people would resist it. He said if you ask for a fish then you get a fish. If you ask for bread, then you get bread. If you ask for the baptism of the Spirit, then you get the baptism of the Spirit. This makes God a “good Father.” Jesus said in John 14 that if you have faith you will do miracles and even greater miracles. In chapter 15 Jesus said if you ask for anything God will give this to you and by this bring great glory to God, and then said the same thing in chapter 16, but then Jesus summed it up in a man-centered way saying, it will complete our joy. In places like Matthew 21:21 He said that with faith we can tell something like a mountain to physically relocate, or a tree, and it will “obey you.”

Billy responded by quoting James 4:3, “you ask wrongly with bad motives.” This means to Billy, we cannot always know if God will give us what we ask. To attack a so-called wrong “faith for anything” doctrine by quoting this verse is like trying to cure your headache by cutting off your head. To shoot your adversary with a nerf-gun, you end up shooting your face with a 50-caliber desert eagle. It doesn’t make any sense.  To attack the doctrine of Faith you must become God’s enemy. Even if you win the argument, you lose your soul. You can never attack the bible’s teaching on faith and miracles without destroying yourself in the process.

Two main points. The first deals with the context of breaking God’s law, or ethics. People have a nubilous idea for what “wrong motives” mean. It is not an icky feeling in your heart. It is law breaking. There is a command somewhere in the bible and you are violating it. You cannot trick God with His commands. You cannot love your neighbor by helping them cut their grass, when you are secretly doing this to plot their murder. You did not find a loophole and trick God. No, the act of cutting their grass is sin for you. In essence you are lying or bearing false witness about yourself. Also, to love your neighbor as yourself, you want people to mean you well in individual acts and long-term goals. We are commanded to never lie and always tell the truth. Jesus commanded us to not commit adultery with our bodies or with our minds. The point, is that wrong motives has to do with a specific law of God and you are breaking it.

Thus, it is irrational to say we do not know if God will answer our prayers because “our motives could be wrong.” Because bad motives deal with specific acts of disobeying God’s commands, you can precisely and intellectually know if you are praying in good or bad motives. So, unless you are just born-again, you know God’s commands and so you know if you are obeying them or disregarding them. By this you can easily pray with good motives and know for certain your prayer is answered. Thus, for the Christian who knows God’s commands, this verse is a non-issue. It does not logically apply to them.

 To say this verse applies to you, then you would need to admit that despite being a Christian for many years and reading God’s word for many years you have no idea what God has commanded and so you have no idea if you are praying for wrong things. Such a person has no business critiquing others about the doctrines of faith and miracles when they do not even know what God has commanded. I could care less what they say. And you should not care either. They should remove the redwood tree sticking out of their eye, before trying to remove a small speck from someone else’s.

But the context of James words makes this much, much worse. James mentions 2 things in particular: murder and adultery. Thus, when praying for wrong things he specifically means praying for God to help you kill your co-worker to steal their money and help you have sex with your neighbor’s wife. A person might not say it so directly, but this is what James mentions by name in this passage.

Obviously, if you ask God to help you sleep with your neighbor, then you are asking God to help you break a command of God. Thus, God will not answer your prayer. This is not a mystery or rocket science. There is a motive to break one of God’s commands, and then you ask God to help you with this evil.  Sometimes it is hidden under another request. “God, give me a million dollars,” but in your heart you plan to use it on prostitutes. Or, “God, heal this girl,” but in your heart you want to win her over, so you can have sex with her. Even though you do not verbalize the law-breaking in the prayer, because it is your true intention, then they are a logical complete unit (like a Modus Ponens). It is a package deal, and so the whole thing is considered as a request to disobey God’s command. Thus a bad motive is simply the non-verbalized request to disobey the command of God, that you conveniently leave out of the prayer. If you are bold you say it out loud.  

The second main point deals with James’ conclusion for this. He says you are either God’s friend or enemy. If you are saved, then you are God’s friend. You cannot both be reconciled to God and His dreaded enemy at the same time. Thus, for James to say you are God’s enemy is saying you are not saved. He says that people who pray like this are friends with the world, but in trade they are God’s enemy. That is, James is not talking self-examination to see if you are a weak Christian versus a mature Christian. No. He is saying examine yourself to see if God is your friend or enemy, to see if you are saved or a reprobate.

This is not the unforgivable sin. All sins and blasphemy, other than blasphemy against the Spirit, is forgivable. In moments of passion, we can say things under our breath that we are ashamed of.  If you have committed this sin, it does not automatically make you a reprobate enemy of God. In a moment of insanity and burning passion it is possible for a Christian to cry out and ask God to let them sleep with person x, because they can’t take the pressure anymore. However, they can realize the horror of this, repent and not do that again. Let us say in their fight for sanctification they say it a few more times, but then they mature and get victory over their emotions. However, if a person does not repent and keeps this type of prayer going in a frequent way, then James is very clear. God is their enemy. They are not saved. They are a reprobate headed to hell. They have declared war on God. The specific details on answers to prayer is the least of their worries.

If you are asking for God to help you break the commands that He has given you, then you are God’s enemy. You are not His friend. This is James’ conclusion for people who pray like this.

I bring this up to show the insanity to use this against Jesus’ teaching, when He says we always get a fish for a fish. If out of 1000 prayers for healing, you said one that had a bad motive (I want this girl healed, so that I can win her over and maybe have sex with her), then the percent is so small it is not worth mentioning as an attack against, “we always get healing when asking for healing.” This is despite the fact we know God would not answer such a prayer, because it breaks a command. However, if your evil motives in prayer were so frequent that the percentage was enough to be a rebuttal against, “we always get healing when asking for healing,” then according to James you are God’s enemy and a reprobate. In order to attack faith and God’s promise you must become God’s enemy. To when the argument you must lose your God and your soul in the process.

The word of God’s enemy and a reprobate means nothing to me. Why would I and anyone care? Seriously, I would respect the word of an orange over an enemy of God.

We are done with the two main points for Billy’s comments; however, I want to quickly deal with good motives. Good motives are plans and requests to obey God’s commandments.

Jesus has already bore our sickness on the cross and by His stripes we were healed. Jesus healed all who came to Him. He did this to bless you and give you joy. To apply the gospel in your life, which is healing, is obedience. Thus, praying for healing is always a good motive. Not applying the gospel in your life is disobedience. Thus not praying for healing is always a bad motive. Jesus says if you have seen Him, then you have seen the Father.  In fact, James in chapter 5 says if you are sick then you must have the church pray so that you can get healed. The prayer of faith will make the sick person get well. This is not a suggestion. It is a command. The command is not merely to pray, but to pray and get the result of healing. Thus, to ask for healing to obey God’s command to get healed is by definition a good motive, and it cannot by definition be bad.

How about money? Jesus says to seek His kingdom first and the “things the pagans seek after,” will be given to you. Have you seriously stopped and thought about what Jesus is saying here? The pagans seek big material blessings and prosperity. This is pagan-level-money-seeking. Jesus says, if you seek after righteousness and His kingdom, then these things will be given to you. He is saying if you want big money, then seek my Kingdom first, and then big money will be given to you. Think about the order of motivation He is laying out here. If your goal is pagan-level-seeking-money, then use the pursuit of seeking righteousness to get it. To ask God to help you seek His kingdom and righteousness, so that you can acquire the level of wealth the pagans want, is by definition a good motive, because it obeys Jesus’ command.  

Some might call this “bad motives,” but they cannot do this without slapping Jesus in the face, because He said it, and He commanded it.  There is much more to say about this, but this is enough to show what some define as bad motives is wrong.