James 4:4 Unfaithful people! Don’t you know that to be the world’s friend means to be God’s enemy? If you want to be the world’s friend, you make yourself God’s enemy. ( Good news translation)
James 4:4 says You’re cheating on God. If all you want is your own way, flirting with the world every chance you get, you end up enemies of God and his way. And do you suppose God doesn’t care? The proverb has it that “he’s a fiercely jealous lover.” (The Message version)
The above scripture establishes certain things the Lord requires of His children. The same scripture may mean different things to alot of people at the same time.
For a long while, I thought it means that I should not get involved in the things of the world which may be relative for different people.For example, I consider going to a club with secular music blasting in the background as worldly. And the list goes on on, I pray the Holy spirit Himself reveals to us the things God considers as wordly or not.Because, I believe there is more to the scripture.
Not getting involved with the things of the world is definitely one of the pointers of James 4:4. What else does this portion of the bible point at?
- God does not smile at cheats, He calls them out just like He is doing in this verse
- Cheating in this context means claiming to be friends with God and still dining with the devil
- We are reminded that our God is a jealous God, He is jealous over us and wants us to Himself
- There is no such thing as balance;we are either friends with God or His enemies
- Our relationship with the world defines our relationship with God
So does this mean we should not or cannot associate with unbelievers? Absolutely not!
I mean, how are we going to spread the gospel of Jesus christ if we do not relate with unbelievers? We definitely can speak with unbelievers, love them and even serve them.
At this point, I will be drawing lessons from the life Our role model, Jesus Christ led while He was on earth.
- While He was here, He mentioned a good number of times that He came specifically to help sinners Luke 5:32.
- Jesus spoke with unbelievers – Luke 7:3-6
- Jesus helped unbelievers – Matthew 8:1-4
- Jesus even stood by sinners for example the adulterous woman because it was not in His place to judge her neither is it in our place to judge people- John 8:1-11
But it is noteworthy that Jesus did not have these people in His close circle. He had men who were believers in His close circle(The 12 disciples).
Therefore, we can have communication with unbelievers in the world, we probably can learn a thing or two from them. We should show them care and the love of God. And when presented the opportunity to serve or share the Gospel of Jesus with them, we should definitely do so
So to answer the question what does it mean to be friends with the world?
- It means allowing our relationship with unbelievers overwhelm us in the sense that we start to forget the true gospel and start to behave like unbelievers.
- It means allowing unbelievers to inspire or influence our decisions
- It means being unfaithful to God
- It means having our physical bodies in church but our souls and spirit lost in lust for the things of the world.
- It means compromising our relationship with God for a relationship with a friend who was created by God.
- It means having a divided mind towards God.
- It means compromising our relationship with God for wealth, fame, or beauty. The list can go on and on.
To wrap up, when the devil told Jesus that he would give him the the whole world if He would only bow down to him. Jesus replied saying to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only” Matthew 4:10
This sums it all, being friends with the world means worshipping God and serving the devil at the same time. But if Jesus declared that we should worship and serve God, we should strive for this always.
May God help us to stay faithful to Him always in Jesu name, Amen