“You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred towards God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.”
~James 4:4
Friendship with the world is hatred towards God. As a Christian, you have to guard against worldliness. You might wonder, “Does it mean I can’t like the world?” Well, God is saying that you can’t like both. You just can’t love God and love Satan. To imagine you could would amount to self-deception; it’s just not possible. According to God’s word, friendship with the world is instant, simultaneous hatred for God.
If as a Christian, your best friend is an unbeliever, you mingle and have fellowship with the world, and then on Sundays you lift up your hands and say, “God, I love you” in church, you are trying to deceive God; but he can’t be deceived because He can see your heart.
“I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve.”
~Jeremiah 17:10
Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.
Friendship with the world is a choice. If as a child of God – who has been saved, redeemed, and brought in the household of God – you choose to respond to your flesh, then you become a friend of the world, and consequently, an enemy of God. It’s a choice; and unfortunately, many Christians are making that choice. They have chosen the world before God. Their lives and experiences are characterized by worldliness. God says, when you make that choice, you evolve and metamorphose from a child of God into an enemy of God.
You can decide today to strengthen your love for God, or you can allow yourself to be distracted by the noise of the world. It’s entirely up to you!
Memory Verse:
James 4:4
“You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred towards God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.”Prayer:
Heavenly Father, May my love for You continue to abound daily. Strengthen me against worldliness, in Jesus’ name.
Amen.