August 2nd, 2026
by Pastor Cross
by Pastor Cross
The Pride of Presumption: When We Plan as Though God Is Unnecessary
There is nothing wrong with making plans. Scripture actually commends it. The ant in Proverbs prepares for the future. Joseph planned for a seven-year famine. Jesus himself taught his followers to count the cost before beginning any significant endeavor. Planning is not the problem. The problem is something far more subtle, and far more common than most of us would like to admit.
It is the habit of planning as though God is unnecessary.
James 4:13 describes a group of merchants who have everything figured out. They know where they are going, how long they will stay, what they will do while they are there, and how much profit they will walk away with. On the surface, it sounds like responsible thinking. Goals, timelines, financial projections. We would likely applaud these men in a business meeting or a financial planning seminar.
But James does not applaud them. He stops them cold with two words: go to now. Pay attention. Look at what you are actually saying.
The merchants speak with total certainty. We will go. We will stay. We will buy. We will sell. We will profit. Five declarations about a future they cannot see, made without a single acknowledgment of the God who holds that future in his hands. James is not troubled by what they included in their plans. He is troubled by what they left out entirely.
This is the pride of presumption. It is not loud or obvious. It does not shake its fist at heaven. It simply arranges tomorrow without consulting the one who owns it.
James follows his observation with one of the most searching questions in all of scripture. He asks in verse 14, "For what is your life?" And then he answers his own question. It is a vapor, a mist, a breath of steam rising from a kettle that disappears almost as quickly as it appeared.
He is not saying that life lacks value. Life is precious, sacred, and God-given. What he is saying is that life lacks permanence. The merchants were making detailed plans for next year. James reminds them that they do not even have a guarantee of tomorrow.
This is not a morbid observation. It is a clarifying one. Job described a man born of a woman as living only a few days. David wrote that his days were as a breath. Moses, a man who lived to be 120 years old, did not pray for more days. He prayed for wisdom about the days he already had, asking God in Psalm 90 to teach him to number his days so that he might apply his heart to wisdom.
Jesus told a parable in Luke 12 about a wealthy farmer whose fields had produced so abundantly that he began talking to himself about all the goods he had stored up for many years. His future seemed secure. His plans were set. But that very night, God required his soul. He had planned for years. God was speaking in terms of hours.
The vapor metaphor is not meant to depress us. It is meant to redirect us. When we understand how brief life truly is, the only reasonable response is to hold our plans loosely and ask the one who holds tomorrow what he would have us do with today.
This is exactly what James prescribes in verse 15. He does not tell the merchants to stop planning. He tells them to change their posture. Instead of speaking with presumptuous certainty, they ought to say, "If the Lord will, we shall live and do this or that."
Many people read that phrase and reduce it to a verbal habit, a spiritual expression Christians are supposed to attach to their sentences. But James is not after vocabulary. He is after the attitude of the heart. A person can say "Lord willing" while remaining completely self-reliant. Another person can never say the phrase and still live in total dependence on God. The issue is never the words. It is the submission.
The kind of faith James is describing holds every plan with an open hand. It works diligently, prepares carefully, and uses good judgment, but it does all of those things while acknowledging that God is the one who opens and closes doors. Proverbs 16 captures this balance precisely, noting that a man devises his way in his heart, but the Lord directs his steps. Planning and sovereignty are not enemies. They are partners. The trouble begins when we reverse those roles and start acting as though God simply exists to rubber-stamp our decisions.
James goes one step further in verse 16, and he does not soften his language. He calls their confident self-reliance what it actually is: boasting. And he declares that all such boasting is evil.
Self-reliance is one of the most celebrated values in modern culture. We admire the self-made person. We teach our children to believe in themselves, follow their hearts, and trust their instincts. There is nothing inherently wrong with confidence or ambition, but when those things replace dependence on God, something has gone seriously wrong.
Paul understood this. He wrote in 2 Corinthians that he was not sufficient of himself, but that his sufficiency came from God. Jeremiah declared that the way of man is not in himself, that it is not in man who walks to direct his own steps. Human beings were never designed for independence from God. We were made to depend on him, and pride's greatest deception is convincing us that dependence is weakness when scripture consistently teaches the opposite.
Verse 17 lands with quiet but unmistakable weight. To him that knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.
This is not about rebellion. It is about neglect. It is the sin of knowing and not acting, of hearing and not obeying, of understanding the will of God and quietly walking the other direction. The priest and the Levite in Luke 10 did not beat the wounded man on the road. They simply passed by. But they knew what goodness required, and they refused it.
The invitation of this passage is not complicated. It is simply this: do not wait for a more convenient season. Do not assume tomorrow belongs to you. The God who holds every breath you take, every plan you make, and every tomorrow you hope to see has made a way through Jesus Christ, who never once delayed his obedience to the Father, and who walked willingly toward the cross so that the debt we could never pay would be paid in full.
That is not a plan to postpone. That is a gift to receive today.
There is nothing wrong with making plans. Scripture actually commends it. The ant in Proverbs prepares for the future. Joseph planned for a seven-year famine. Jesus himself taught his followers to count the cost before beginning any significant endeavor. Planning is not the problem. The problem is something far more subtle, and far more common than most of us would like to admit.
It is the habit of planning as though God is unnecessary.
James 4:13 describes a group of merchants who have everything figured out. They know where they are going, how long they will stay, what they will do while they are there, and how much profit they will walk away with. On the surface, it sounds like responsible thinking. Goals, timelines, financial projections. We would likely applaud these men in a business meeting or a financial planning seminar.
But James does not applaud them. He stops them cold with two words: go to now. Pay attention. Look at what you are actually saying.
The merchants speak with total certainty. We will go. We will stay. We will buy. We will sell. We will profit. Five declarations about a future they cannot see, made without a single acknowledgment of the God who holds that future in his hands. James is not troubled by what they included in their plans. He is troubled by what they left out entirely.
This is the pride of presumption. It is not loud or obvious. It does not shake its fist at heaven. It simply arranges tomorrow without consulting the one who owns it.
James follows his observation with one of the most searching questions in all of scripture. He asks in verse 14, "For what is your life?" And then he answers his own question. It is a vapor, a mist, a breath of steam rising from a kettle that disappears almost as quickly as it appeared.
He is not saying that life lacks value. Life is precious, sacred, and God-given. What he is saying is that life lacks permanence. The merchants were making detailed plans for next year. James reminds them that they do not even have a guarantee of tomorrow.
This is not a morbid observation. It is a clarifying one. Job described a man born of a woman as living only a few days. David wrote that his days were as a breath. Moses, a man who lived to be 120 years old, did not pray for more days. He prayed for wisdom about the days he already had, asking God in Psalm 90 to teach him to number his days so that he might apply his heart to wisdom.
Jesus told a parable in Luke 12 about a wealthy farmer whose fields had produced so abundantly that he began talking to himself about all the goods he had stored up for many years. His future seemed secure. His plans were set. But that very night, God required his soul. He had planned for years. God was speaking in terms of hours.
The vapor metaphor is not meant to depress us. It is meant to redirect us. When we understand how brief life truly is, the only reasonable response is to hold our plans loosely and ask the one who holds tomorrow what he would have us do with today.
This is exactly what James prescribes in verse 15. He does not tell the merchants to stop planning. He tells them to change their posture. Instead of speaking with presumptuous certainty, they ought to say, "If the Lord will, we shall live and do this or that."
Many people read that phrase and reduce it to a verbal habit, a spiritual expression Christians are supposed to attach to their sentences. But James is not after vocabulary. He is after the attitude of the heart. A person can say "Lord willing" while remaining completely self-reliant. Another person can never say the phrase and still live in total dependence on God. The issue is never the words. It is the submission.
The kind of faith James is describing holds every plan with an open hand. It works diligently, prepares carefully, and uses good judgment, but it does all of those things while acknowledging that God is the one who opens and closes doors. Proverbs 16 captures this balance precisely, noting that a man devises his way in his heart, but the Lord directs his steps. Planning and sovereignty are not enemies. They are partners. The trouble begins when we reverse those roles and start acting as though God simply exists to rubber-stamp our decisions.
James goes one step further in verse 16, and he does not soften his language. He calls their confident self-reliance what it actually is: boasting. And he declares that all such boasting is evil.
Self-reliance is one of the most celebrated values in modern culture. We admire the self-made person. We teach our children to believe in themselves, follow their hearts, and trust their instincts. There is nothing inherently wrong with confidence or ambition, but when those things replace dependence on God, something has gone seriously wrong.
Paul understood this. He wrote in 2 Corinthians that he was not sufficient of himself, but that his sufficiency came from God. Jeremiah declared that the way of man is not in himself, that it is not in man who walks to direct his own steps. Human beings were never designed for independence from God. We were made to depend on him, and pride's greatest deception is convincing us that dependence is weakness when scripture consistently teaches the opposite.
Verse 17 lands with quiet but unmistakable weight. To him that knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.
This is not about rebellion. It is about neglect. It is the sin of knowing and not acting, of hearing and not obeying, of understanding the will of God and quietly walking the other direction. The priest and the Levite in Luke 10 did not beat the wounded man on the road. They simply passed by. But they knew what goodness required, and they refused it.
The invitation of this passage is not complicated. It is simply this: do not wait for a more convenient season. Do not assume tomorrow belongs to you. The God who holds every breath you take, every plan you make, and every tomorrow you hope to see has made a way through Jesus Christ, who never once delayed his obedience to the Father, and who walked willingly toward the cross so that the debt we could never pay would be paid in full.
That is not a plan to postpone. That is a gift to receive today.
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