Grace Is Conditional.

Brothers and sisters, the scriptures clearly state we are responsible for our actions and over and over they tell us what to do and what not to do. They both encourage us and also warn us of certain behaviors that will cause us to be condemned. The following questions are answered in the scriptures quoted. 

     1.  Does friendship with the world mean we are adulterers and at hostility with God?
     2.  Is grace conditional with God opposing the arrogant, but giving grace to the humble?
     3.  Are we warned that because of grace being conditional we are to:

          Submit ourselves to God?

          Resist the devil?

          Come close to God?

          Cleanse our hands and purify our hearts?

          Be miserable, mourn and cry?

          Let our laughter be turned into mourning and our joy into gloom?

          Humble ourselves in the Lord's presence?

  
    4. Can we be condemned?

  
James 4 ISV

1Where do those fights and quarrels among you come from? They come from your selfish desires that are at war in your bodies, don’t they? 2You want something but do not get it, so you commit murder. 

You covet something but cannot obtain it, so you quarrel and fight. You do not get things because you do not ask for them! 3You ask for something but do not get it because you ask for it for the wrong reason—for your own pleasure. 4You adulterers! Don’t you know that friendship with the world means hostility with God? 

So whoever wants to be a friend of this world is an enemy of God.  

5Or do you think the Scripture means nothing when it says that the Spirit that God caused to live in us jealously yearns for us? 6But he gives all the more grace. And so he says,

“God opposes the arrogant

but gives grace to the humble.”

7Therefore, 

• submit yourselves to God. 
• Resist the devil, and he will run away from you. 
• 8Come close to God, and he will come close to you. 
• Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 
• 9Be miserable, mourn, and cry. 
• Let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy into gloom. 
• 10Humble yourselves in the Lord’s presence, and he will exalt you.

James 5 ISV

7So be patient, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious crop from his land, being patient with it until it receives the fall and the spring rains. 8You, too, must be patient. Strengthen your hearts, because the coming of the Lord is near. 

9Do not complain about each other, brothers, or you will be condemned. Look! The Judge is standing at the door! 10As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets, who spoke in the name of the Lord. 11We consider those who endured to be blessed. You have heard about Job’s endurance and have seen the purpose of the Lord—that the Lord is compassionate and merciful.

12Above all, brothers, do not swear oaths by heaven, by earth, or by any other object.b Instead, let your “Yes” mean yes and your “No” mean no! Otherwise, you may fall under condemnation.