James 4:13-17 BSB (Berean Standard Bible)

13Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business, and make a profit.” 14You do not even know what will happen tomorrow! What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.

15Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord is willing, we will live and do this or that.” 16As it is, you boast in your proud intentions. All such boasting is evil. 17Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do, yet fails to do it, is guilty of sin.

Belief in Jesus Christ

When we believe in Jesus Christ to be Lord and Savior of our lives, we are giving up our lives of living in sin and for self in order to now live for Him and to do His will. Our lives are no longer our own to be lived however we want to live them, for Jesus bought us back for God (He redeemed us) out of our lives of slavery to sin so that we might now serve our Lord in walks of obedience to His commands in holy living. Therefore, He should be the one we go to in making our plans, for He might have other plans for us to do.

Belonging to Christ

But it isn’t just that we should inquire of Him before making huge plans, the kinds of plans suggested in this passage of Scripture which would take up an enormous amount of our time, as in years, but that our lives should now belong to God, and He should now be master of our lives. And we should be those who are seeking to know His will and His purpose for our lives and who are doing the will of God in being the people He has called us to be in doing what He has called us to do and in going wherever He sends us.

Inquire of The Lord

Therefore, we must inquire of the Lord as to who He wants us to be, and as to what He wants us to do with our lives, and with regard to where He wants us to go and to live and to work. For what He wants for our lives may not be what we had in mind. Or it may be something we would never have thought of or dreamed of or even considered before. And we need to be ready and available whenever He says that it is time to uproot and to move somewhere else, or to take a different job, or to begin a new ministry, etc.

Wives Submitting to Husbands

And if the Lord has been prompting us to move in a different direction, but we do the opposite of what He is calling us to do, that is sin. But if we are married, and if we are female, we are to submit to our husbands unless what they are requiring of us is sinful and definitely out of the will of God, or if they are requiring that we disobey God. We never have to submit to sin. But God gave women to men to be their helpers, and we are to be one flesh, so we can share our beliefs with our husbands and then trust them to God.

In other words, when we are married, and the two become one flesh, then it is no longer one person answering to God and following His leading, but it is two, and the two are to become one. I, as the wife to my husband, cannot just say that I believe God is sending us to a different state and so we should now pack up our bags and move. I can present to my husband what I believe is the leading of the Lord, but if he does not have the same belief, then I must wait on the Lord. I must surrender that to the Lord.

So, the point here is that, if we are married, and if we are female, we are not one person deciding where we will live. And the right thing for us to do is to submit to our husbands as long as we are not submitting to sin, as long as they are not requiring that we act out of the will of God. We can share our thoughts and beliefs, for we are to be their helpers, but we are to go with our husbands unless they are leading us into sin. For that is the right thing for us to do. And then we just need to give it all over to the Lord.

The Right Thing to Do
An Original Work / September 29, 2026
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

Only Hope

By Jonathan Foreman

There’s a song that’s inside
Of my soul..
Sing to me of the plans
That you have for me over again

I give you my destiny
I’m giving you all of me
I want your symphony
Singing in all that I am
At the top of my lungs
I’m giving it my all

So, I lay my head back down
And I lift my hands and pray
To be only yours I pray
To be only yours
I know now you’re my only hope

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