Friendship with the World

Do you hate God?

That is a question we don’t ask.  It is shocking.  Of course we don’t hate God!  He is our Father, Savior and Lord.  But here is what His Word says,

You unfaithful people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God?  Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.

James 4:4

Whoa!!!  Make you uncomfortable?  Does me.  Am I a friend of the world?  I like things here and enjoy my life…but at times I really hate the sin in this world.  I could just rationalize it but it is God’s Word and that is truth.  So what do we do with this?

1 John 2:15-16 says,

Do not love the world or anything in the world.  If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.  For everything in the world – the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes’ and the boasting of what he has and does – comes not from the Father but from the world.  The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.   

Let’s be honest.  I see a lot of God’s children loving the world and things of the world.  So that means many Christians are also missing out on the love of our Father (vs. 15).

Let that sink in.  Our love for worldly things is causing us to not have God’s love in us.

I don’t want that!  The world will pass away but if I do God’s will I will live forever.  Everything in the world – does not come from God.  Wow.  Our sinful desires/wants, lust to look and want what isn’t good or right for us, and pride of what we have or what we do are the ways of the world.  We should not love these because they do not come from God.

So why do we do them?

We need to check our attitudes.  Are we preoccupied with gratifying physical desires, craving and accumulation things, bowing to materialism, obsessed with our status or importance?  We are focused on the wrong things, wrong values, and wrong truths.

Friendship with the world (James 4:4) and loving the world (1 John 2:15) are when we seek pleasure, self, things…the world at the expense of obeying God.  When we choose the world (all our cravings, lust, and boasts) instead of God’s will we are living in disobedience.  When the world keeps us from God it is sinful.

Truth hurts.

But, we know God and His character.  He don’t love us less – His love is UNCONDITIONAL.  It doesn’t depend on us and what we do, He will always love us!  He longs for all to be saved.  He grace is a gift not earned.  He has already purified us, given us victory and offers it to us to accept and live in. 

James 4 goes on to say,

Submit yourself, then, to God.  Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.  Come near to God and He will come near to you.  Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.  Grieve, mourn and wail.  Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.  Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up.

James 4:7-10

We need to come near to God.  Say no to the world and devil’s ways.  Even run from it!  Cry out to God in repentance; grieve your sinful ways.  Be cleaned from living as a child of Christ and part of the world (God’s enemy).  Submit your whole self, every part of your life, to God.  When we are humble God lifts us up.

This is God’s will for you.  He desires for you to be close to Him.

For Jesus said we are not of this world.  Because we are not a part of this world and all it does and believes, we will be hated by it. 

If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.  If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own.  As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world.  That is why the world hates you.

John 15:18-19

So, my dear brothers and sisters, may we not love the world and so show hatred toward God.  But let us be hated by the world and show love to God.