Albert Barnes Commentary James 4:3

"Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may spend [it] in your pleasures." — James 4:3 (ASV)

You ask, and receive not. That is, some of you ask, or you ask on some occasions. Though generally seeking what you desire by strife and without regard for the rights of others, yet you sometimes pray. It is not uncommon for men who go to war to pray, or to procure the services of a chaplain to pray for them.

It sometimes happens that the covetous and the quarrelsome pray—those who live to wrong others and who are fond of litigation. Such men may be professors of religion. They keep up a form of worship in their families. They pray for success in their worldly engagements, though those engagements are all based on covetousness.

Instead of seeking property so that they may glorify God and do good, so that they may relieve the poor and distressed, and so that they may be the patrons of learning, philanthropy, and religion, they do it so that they may live in splendor and be able to pamper their lusts. It is not indeed very common that persons with such ends and aims of life pray, but they sometimes do it; for, alas,

there are many professors of religion who have no higher aims than these, and not a few such professors feel that consistency demands that they should observe some form of prayer. If such persons do not receive what they ask for, if they are not prospered in their plans, they should not consider it evidence that God does not hear prayer, but rather evidence that their prayers are offered for improper objects or with improper motives.

Because you ask amiss. You do it with a view to self-indulgence and carnal gratification.

That you may consume it upon your lusts. The marginal reading is pleasures. This is the same word that is used in James 4:1 and rendered lusts. The reference is to sensual gratifications, and the word would include all that comes under the name of sensual pleasure or carnal appetite. It was not that they might have a decent and comfortable living, which would not be improper to desire, but that they might have the means of luxurious dress and living, perhaps the means of gross sensual gratifications.

We have no reason to suppose God will answer prayers offered so that we may have the means of sensuality and voluptuousness, for He has not promised to hear such prayers. It becomes everyone who prays for worldly prosperity and for success in business to examine his motives with the closest scrutiny. Nowhere is deception more likely to creep in than into such prayers; nowhere are we more likely to be mistaken about our real motives than when we go before God and ask for success in our worldly employments.