James 4:4 You adulterous people! Don’t you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God? I say it again: If you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God.
Our relationship with the Lord is like a marriage covenant. He must always be first in our lives. When anyone or anything takes the foremost place and gets more importance than God, it becomes an illicit affair. James calls the lovers of the world, “adulterous”. “Friendship with the World” can be defined as our affinity to people or perspectives more than our affection to the Lord God.” Friendship with the world is not only a wayward and wicked lifestyle but also worry, anxiety and panic. Worrying is a sin. Worry is a mental distress as a result of anxiety about an existing or an anticipatory problem. The problem could be real, but 90% of the things we worry about are unreal. Worry dominates our thoughts as we stress about the problem more than praying about it. If the evil foreboding overpowers our faith, we are in friendship with the world.
Friendship with the world also means to be flexible and pliable to the ways of the world. It can also be understood as ‘compromise and conformity’ to worldly perceptions and philosophies. Some real life examples of worldly lifestyle are violation of road rules, moral values, bribery, tax evasion, foul or filthy language to fit into the crowd or coarse joking to gain attention. Obviously, I’m not trying to win the approval of people, but of God. If pleasing people were my goal, I would not be Christ’s servant (Galatians 1:10). Conformity to the ways of the world makes us an enemy of God.
Friendship with the world:
1. Worry: Worry chokes the root of our faith and kills the fruit. The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful. (Matthew 13:22). Turn your worry and the very thing that is stressing you to God in prayer and the peace of God will rule your heart and mind.
2. Wrong: Never vouch evil as good. Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! (Isaiah 5:20). God hates compromise.
3. Wayward: Stepping in the path of sinners, standing with the scoffer and sitting with the slanderous makes us enemies to God. Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers (Psalm 1:1).
Affinity with God keeps us calm in the storm and peaceful through the perplexities of life.
Association with the world leaves us puzzled, petrified and perturbed.
Luke 21:34-36 “Be careful not to spend your time feasting, drinking, or worrying about worldly things. If you do, that day might come on you suddenly, like a trap on all people on earth.
Prayer: Lord Jesus, give me the courage to stand for the truth and never to compromise and conform to the ways of the world. Amen.
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