October 14, 2022
Daily Devotion:
“A Greater Friendship with a Faithful God... "
James 4:4
New International Version
4 You adulterous people, [a] 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.
Choose your friends carefully" is good advice-especially for young people for "Bad company corrupts good character." Why, then, are parents so quick to give that advice, yet so unwilling to follow it themselves when it comes to choosing either friendship with God or friendship with the world? Indeed, why do parents have such great concern for the friends their children choose, but think nothing of the worldly friendship they themselves introduce to their children? Make no mistake, none of us can be neutral about which “friend" we have chosen. There's no "casual friends" versus "close friends." No “work friends" and “social friends." With God, it's all or nothing. Not that God is unwilling to share. He simply knows that, at best, the world is only a pretend friend. With the world it's all take and no give, all promise and no fulfillment. No wonder the world is God's enemy, for only God's love is genuine, and only his promises are always fulfilled. As our Father, God wants to spare us the hurt and disappointment that comes from ill-chosen friendships. Are you perhaps not so sure that we committed believers are "friends with the world"? If the case could be made by the use of only one word in today's culture, that word would be materialism. Only the most blind among us could possibly deny that we have too much, too soon, too often. That we are spoiled by the abundant life. That we are consumed by our consumables and enslaved to our possessions. If that isn't friendship with the world, what is? To claim a friendship with God that permits an ongoing friendship with God's enemy is not just to offend God, but to engage in the most dangerous self-deception.
The question of choice is: Do the decisions I make reflect a greater friendship with a faithful God or with an ever-so-fickle friend?
