Pastor Barry's  "Chapter & Verse"  Day 11

January 11;      James 4:4;       220/260(III);        ‘A World’s Friend’

James 4:4 Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

Verses 1-4 of James 4 talks about Christians who are more interested in the ‘stuff’ the world offers than they are in the things of God.  The desires of these carnal Christians is the pleasures the world seemingly offers.  Believers like this selfishly pursue the things of this world and will fight to obtain what they want, even if they have to take it from another.  Verse 3 tells us that these deceived ones actually pray for things out of selfish, worldly lusts and of course the prayer is not answered since the requests are purely carnal.  In the Old Testament, those who forsake the Lord and follow after idols are called adulterers and adulteresses.  These believers, having their hearts hooked up with the things of the world find themselves estranged from the Lord.  We are exhorted in the Word to come out from the things of this world and be separate.  There are worldly things that are not wrong.  Sports, hobbies, other interests.  The priorities these things have in your life could be proper or they could be wrong if they are in excess.  The key in this verse is that our friendship is with the world.  The word world is the Greek word kosmos and signifies the world system alienated and antagonistic towards God.  Those who do not know the Lord and at this point are not interested in Him, are not the kind of people we need to be associated with.  If we are ever in their company, it should never be because we want what they do, it is to share the gospel and lead them to Jesus.