Who's Really in Control?
Scripture: James 4:11–5:6
We often say that we trust God. We believe He loves us, provides for us, and has a plan for our lives. But if someone were to follow us around for a week, would they actually see that we've put our faith in Him?
There's an apparent contradiction many of us live with: we claim to trust God, but then go about our daily lives making decisions as though everything depends on us.
We make our plans, organize our schedules, pursue financial security, and try to keep everything moving in the direction we want. And often, after we've already made our decisions, we ask God to bless them.
In James 4:11–5:6, James confronts this tendency. He exposes the pride that leads us to assume a role that belongs to God alone. Through three different areas of life, he challenges us to stop grasping for control and learn to live in humble dependence on God.
1. God is the perfect judge, so don't try to place yourself above Him.
James begins by addressing the way believers were speaking about one another.
He writes:
"Brothers and sisters, do not slander one another." (James 4:11)
The issue wasn't simply that people were forming opinions about one another. James was confronting the kind of judgment that leads to slander, condemnation, and putting others down to make ourselves look better.
It's easy to develop expectations for how other people should behave while failing to hold ourselves to those same standards. We see someone else's shortcomings clearly while overlooking our own.
But James reminds us that there is only one Lawgiver and Judge. When we place ourselves above others, we begin acting as though we have an authority that belongs to God.
The alternative is humility. When we recognize our own need for God's grace, it changes how we see and treat the people around us. We no longer need to put others down to make ourselves feel better. Instead, we can extend the same grace and love that God has extended to us.
2. Control is not ours to take; it belongs to God.
James then turns his attention to the way people approach the future.
He describes merchants confidently making plans: traveling to a particular city, spending a year doing business, and making a profit. Their problem wasn't that they were working hard or making plans. It was that they were making those plans as though they had complete control over what tomorrow would bring.
James reminds them that life is temporary and that we don't even know what tomorrow holds.
Instead, he encourages them to approach life with a different attitude:
"If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." (James 4:15)
This isn't a command to stop planning, setting goals, or working hard. It's a reminder that our plans must be submitted to God.
Sometimes we see how tightly we're holding on to control when our plans are interrupted. Traffic, unexpected circumstances, changes in our schedules, or the needs of other people can quickly reveal how frustrated we become when life doesn't go according to our expectations.
The issue isn't how much we plan. It's whether our plans are submitted to God.
Rather than simply asking God to bless the plans we've already made, we can learn to seek Him before making those plans and remain attentive to what He might be doing along the way.
We don't have to control tomorrow because our lives are already in His hands.
3. Money is a tool, but it can easily become our master.
Finally, James addresses the way people approach wealth.
His words in James 5:1–6 are some of the strongest in his letter. He confronts wealthy individuals who have accumulated riches while exploiting others and withholding wages from the people who worked for them.
James isn't condemning wealth simply because someone has money. He's exposing what happens when the pursuit and preservation of wealth become more important than God and the well-being of other people.
Their wealth has become a source of selfishness and injustice rather than something used to serve others.
This challenge is still relevant today. We can become so focused on our own comfort and financial security that we overlook the needs of the people around us. We can prioritize getting what we want at the lowest possible cost without considering the people who produced it. We can become so concerned with accumulating more that we lose sight of how God has called us to care for others.
One of the clearest signs that money has become our master is when we're willing to prioritize our own comforts at the expense of someone else's well-being.
James challenges us to use our resources in ways that reflect love of neighbor and concern for the vulnerable.
One practical way we can begin doing this is through generosity. Giving helps loosen money's grip on our hearts. It reminds us that our security doesn't ultimately come from what we've accumulated, but from God, who provides for us.
Money can provide many things we genuinely need, but it can never give us the lasting security, identity, and peace that we find in Christ.
Learning to live with open hands
As we work through this passage, James reveals three different ways we can try to take a place that belongs to God.
We can try to take His place as judge by looking down on others.
We can try to take control of our future by making plans without submitting them to Him.
And we can try to find our security in the wealth we've accumulated rather than trusting Him to provide for us.
But all three reveal the same underlying problem: we can claim to trust God while living as though everything depends on us.
The good news is that we don't have to live that way.
We no longer have to grasp for control when we trust the One who already has it.
God is already on the throne. He sees what we cannot see, knows what we cannot know, and holds what we cannot control.
Our invitation is to stop trying to occupy His place and start living in humble dependence on Him.
This week, consider these questions:
Where are you tempted to judge others rather than extend grace?
Are you seeking God's direction before making plans, or simply asking Him to bless the decisions you've already made?
Does the way you spend and use your money reflect a love for God and others?
What would it look like to loosen your grip and trust God with that area of your life?
Genuine faith becomes visible in the way we live. And one of the clearest ways we demonstrate our faith is by learning to trust God with the things we've been trying so hard to control.
