Who's Your Friend?

One of the biggest struggles within the Christian walk can be dealt with by determining who your friend is.  There is no gray area with this issue.  You are either friends with the world or you are friends with God.  You cannot be both, though many try.  James said clearly that this is the reason there are quarrels and fights among us, because our “passions are at war” within us (4:1).  When our desires are not met because we are trying to be friends with both sides we end up losing the battle to the world, thus sin.  “You do not have because you do not ask” (James 4:2c).

James begs the question, “How is your spiritual life?”  Just because someone prays does not mean their spiritual life is healthy.  “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions” (4:3).  You can pray all day long and yet still be a friend to the world which in turn makes you an enemy of the very one to whom you pray!  How ironic.  God is a jealous God, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us” (James 4:5b).  How then can we deny the world and turn to God?  James breaks it down to humility.  “God gives grace to the humble” (4:6).

What does humility entail?  Ask the elementary boy how he felt when he wet his pants at school what humiliation means.  It literally means “to cause someone to lose prestige or status; to become humble in attitude” (BDAG 990).  If we can get off our high horse as humans and lose our prestige we can begin to deny the world and turn to God.  James wrote, “Submit yourselves therefore to God.  Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.  Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you” (4:7-8).  If we can be spiritually strong enough to lose our prestige and realize our sin, we will “be wretched and mourn and weep” (James 4:9).  Only when we give up our friendship with the world can we truly sing, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.”  It is hard to tell someone you no longer want to be friends.  It takes courage and a lot of humiliation to have a conversation such as that.  James promised though, “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you” (4:10).  Giving up friendship with the world will humiliate you, but the Lord will renew your prestige.