UNFRIEND THE WORLD

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

“You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you think Scripture says without reason that He jealously longs for the spirit He has caused to dwell in us? But He gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:

“God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.”

James 4:4-6

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

If you are one of millions of people who have used Facebook, diving into the deep end of social media, you know about the concept of friending.

The way it works is that you start by making a page and populating it with posts, either using your words, your pictures, videos, or a combination of them. Then you can send friend requests to people and they can also send them to you but here’s the thing. Either you or they have to accept the friend request before you can officially be Facebook friends and this has caused a great deal of angst and problems between people, especially if someone intentionally refuses to friend another. It’s the social media equivalent of rejection and no one likes to be rejected.

Here’s something else that happens a lot and ends up causing issues. It’s called unfriending.

In this case, one person decided at one time to accept another person’s friend request. These two social media friends remain connected unless one unfriends the other and believe it or not, it happens quite frequently, mostly when two people find themselves in a digital dispute with each other. Unable (or maybe even unwilling) to settle the disagreement, one person makes the choice to unfriend the other which serves the purposes of severing the social media relationship. Think of it as an online breakup.

What does this have to do with the Bible and today’s verses from the 4th chapter of James?

As we see, the matter of befriending is central to our passage. Look again at it here:

“You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you think Scripture says without reason that He jealously longs for the spirit He has caused to dwell in us? But He gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:

“God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.”  James 4:4-6

Here we find the matter of friending narrowed to two options for each and every person. Rather than having a buffet table of friends to choose from, the scriptures give us two: the world and God. Note that it’s impossible to be friends with both at the same time. You are either a friend of the world or you are a friend of God and when you are a friend of one, you become a natural enemy of the other.

In fact, we learn that God expects us to friend Him and Him alone. We are not to stray from Him to build a relationship with the world and its ways but unfortunately we don’t stay faithful to Him. We too often are an adulterous people who choose the world and antagonize God in the process, becoming His enemy. Friends, that’s not a place anyone should willingly go. Ever.

And yet, we do. We turn away from our relationship with God who loves us and provides for us perfectly in accordance with His will for us. And we do so because we can’t be satisfied with what God gives us. Rather, we allow our own desires to override our sensibility and place ourselves in the crosshairs of God’s judgment as a result.

Frankly, He should just wipe us all out for our disrespectful, sinful attitude and behavior toward Him but He doesn’t. He gives us grace, a grace that we don’t merit and yet He still extends it to us, a grace that is truly amazing.

If you’ve turned from God and made the world your companion, listen to the scriptures and unfriend the world. Return to the Lord, give thanks for His goodness and grace, and never turn from Him again. For in Him and in Him alone do you have everything you could ever hope for, everything you could ever need.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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