FRIENDSHIP WITH THE WORLD

James 4:4 (AMPC) You [are like] unfaithful wives [having illicit love affairs with the world and breaking your marriage vow to God]! Do you not know that being the world’s friend is being God’s enemy? So whoever chooses to be a friend of the world takes his stand as an enemy of God.

We are married to the Lord, and He expects us to keep our marriage vows. He looks at us in many various relationships. This scripture brings out two of them, married to Him and friendship with Him. Hosea 2:19-20 (NLT) says, “I will make you my wife forever, showing you righteousness and justice, unfailing love and compassion. I will be faithful to you and make you mine...” In Romans 7, we see the Holy Spirit, through Paul, talking about adultery and marriage and telling us we belong to the Lord; He sees us as married to Him. Then, the entire point of Ephesians 5, which we use to teach about marriage between a man and a woman, says in Verse 32 that a natural marriage is supposed to be a picture of Christ and the Church. Since we are married to Christ, as the body of Christ, we should treat it as the sacred vow and covenant that it is. Our verse tells us we should not be like an unfaithful wife having illicit love affairs with the world. When we are in relationship with this world and its system, we are breaking our marriage vow to God! What does that look like. What is it? This scripture says that it is friendship with the world. Remember, the Lord said in Amos 3:3 that two cannot walk together unless they agree. If we are going to walk close with the Lord and in our relationship with Him, we must agree with Him. How? We must agree in thoughts, in words, and in actions. Romans 12:2 gives us more insight into being a friend of the world saying that if we don’t change our thoughts to be God’s thoughts, we are being conformed to this world’s system, meaning we think like them, we talk like them, and we do things like they would do them; and we are not bothered by sin, we are not concerned with carnality, and we let our flesh do what pleases it. In 1 John 2:15, it says it even stronger that we are not to love the things of this world, and if we do, the love of the Father is not in us. There are all kinds of warnings in scripture about yielding to your flesh and fleshly desires. The world, those not born of God, live in their flesh because that is the only thing they can do. The Lord wants to be close to us so He can treat us like close, special friends and give us all the benefits of His covenant that He made with us, but we must do our part. What is our part? We are to choose His friendship over the friendship of the world, choose His approval over the approval of the world, and do everything within our power to keep our marriage vow to Him.