I was having a fun little talk about scripture with one of my best friends this morning and he hit me with something that I thought we could discuss further...
A bit of a backstory, this guy was pretty much agnostic his entire adult life. We used to talk about God all the time, and he would say 'God is energy and we can't believe the bible' and lines of thinking like that. Pantheism I suppose...But recently, by God's grace, he discovered Jesus and is about to be baptized.
Amazing!
But he has a big problem with how the world is headed right now, so much so that he feels that this world can be saved and it needs to be our focus. He shared with me James 4:4 and he was having big problems with it...
If you are a 'friend' of the world, you are an enemy of God???
Huh? What does this even mean.....
So I thought I would dive into this a bit more today and discover what being an enemy of God means.
You don't need to dig too deep to see who scripture says is the 'prince and ruler' of this world. But in case you want to dig, here's some verses:
John 12:31
John 16: 11
Let's go back in time and see who this world belongs to:
Scripture is clear, the ruler of this world, the prince of it is none other than Satan. This is his fallen domain, and God's big plan of redemption is to get humanity back to Him and 'reboot' this earth for the kingdom of eternity.
But right now, it's under the control of the wicked one.
So what my friend was having trouble with, when it came to James 4:4 was that how can we be enemies of God, if we love the world?
Don't we all love the world? Nature? Big open blue skies, beautiful rivers and valleys. Oceans and mountains....I mean this is God's handiwork afterall, shouldn't we 'love' it? And care for it?
I believe we should and we do, however when it comes down to it, this stuff is temporary. Seek ye first the kingdom of God is what Jesus tells us in Matthew chapter 6 verse 33, which means to me that our eyes must be fixed on eternity.
We cannot be surprised when bad things happen on this planet. Why there are wars, and death and evil at every turn...It's supposed to be like that. This is a war zone and a battle ground for the wicked...
Remember Ephesians 6:12...
So my conclusion after reading scripture and really trying to wrap my head around this verse in James comes down to this:
We are to seek the kingdom of God. Jesus has overcome this world (John 16:33). Yes, we are to take care of the planet, we are to be good stewards of it. However we cannot be in love with worldly things. We cannot focus on what the world says is good and keep our eyes on that. It must be God first! The kingdom is our destiny, not sin and destruction.
I always love thinking about different verses to keep my eyes focused on God and His plan of salvation and redemption, and I hope this last verse I'm going to share really hammers home the point. When it all comes down to it, it's choice. God wants us to CHOOSE Him, out of love.
Joshua 24:15 forever :)
