Tag: friendship with the world

The Right Friendship

James 4

Wednesday, October 5, 2022

Conflicts and violence are problems we humans have always dealt with. If only there were some insights in the book of James to help us understand why, and how we might be able to help the situation.

“Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures.” (James 4:1-3 NRSV)

James says the source of conflict is the cravings at war within us. We covet things that we don’t have, and perceive that there isn’t enough to go around, leading us to take what we want by force, many times at the expense of others. We’re wired so deeply for survival that the fear of scarcity often drives us to get what we need in whatever way we can. It’s both a blessing and a curse. 

The passage goes a level deeper into the investigation and explores why we don’t have what we need: It’s because we don’t ask. That’s something I’m not good at. I often feel uncomfortable asking someone else for something, because I think it’s my own responsibility to take care of it. By not asking, I’m underutilizing one of the biggest strengths of being part of family and community. There is more than enough to go around if asking and sharing happen freely.

There’s another layer to this. Sometimes when we ask, we don’t receive because we ask with wrong or selfish motives. By chasing after the wrong things, we are fueling the fire of conflict. James is prompting us to take inventory of our desires and motives. It’s not wrong to need or want things, but the challenge is to seek the right things with a pure heart.

James continues his train of thought by contrasting “friendship with the world” and friendship with God. When we seek things with the wrong motives, we make ourselves friends of the world, and therefore enemies of God. Instead, make yourself a friend of God by humbling yourself and submitting to the leading of his spirit that lives within us. Set aside your selfish desires, as painful as that may be, and ask for truly good things.

James is offering us an antidote to conflicts and violence, advocating for a more peaceful way—partner with God (“draw near” to him) by properly aligning your desires. Seek after and ask for the right things, and have enough as you share in God’s abundance and grace.

-Jay Laurent

Questions to consider:

1. What are some things you need or want, but don’t have?

2. Do you think these needs/wants are because of selfish desires, or are they good things to seek after?

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Who Do You Listen To?

2 Chronicles 23-24

From yesterday’s reading, we learned that a baby named Joash was hidden when his grandmother attempted to wipe out the whole royal line, so she could rule unopposed.  Joash was abducted by his aunt, and her husband, Johoiada, the high priest.  (The fact that his aunt was godly, coming from such a wicked family is nothing short of miraculous.)  Joash was hidden in the temple for 7 years.  (What better place to hide someone from the wicked queen, Athaliah?  She would never go there!)

When Joash was 7, Jehoiada arranged for Joash to be crowned king, and had Athaliah killed.  We’re told in 2 Chronicles 24:3, “Joash did what was right in the eyes of the Lord all the years of Jehoiada the priest.”  Jehoiada chose two godly wives for Joash.  Joash also commanded that God’s temple be repaired.  Because of this, many people consider Joash a godly king.  

When Jehoiada died, he was buried with the kings because of all the good he had done for God and his temple.  I wish the story stopped here, but it doesn’t.  After Joash’s godly mentor died, he listened to the officials of Judah, and abandoned the God of their fathers to worship Asherah poles and idols.  God sent prophets, but the king wouldn’t listen.  Joash even killed Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada (who had raised Joash).

As punishment, God sent Aram raiders to plunder Judah.  We’re told in 2 Chronicles 24:24, “Although the Aramean army had come with only a few men, the Lord delivered into their hands a much larger army because Judah had forsaken the Lord …)  

Joash was wounded in the battle, and some of his own officials conspired to kill Joash for murdering the son of Jehoiada.  Joash was not buried with the kings because of the evil he had done.

In this story, we see an example of someone who started out zealously serving the Lord.  As long as his godly mentor was there to remind him to follow God, he did follow God.  Once that godly influence was dead, Joash was enticed away from God through peer pressure. His life was a downward spiral after that, then he died.

This highlights the importance of surrounding ourselves with godly mentors and godly friends.  It’s so easy to be enticed away from God.  I picture sin sort of like an addiction.  Every one of us should think of ourselves as needing to join a program so we do not relapse.  Every one of us can say, “Hi, I’m Steve (substitute your name here), and I have a problem.”  We need godly friends to hold us accountable to live for God.  And we have to be vigilant ourselves.

If we’re surrounded by worldly friends, we will almost certainly crash and burn like Joash.

I’d like to encourage you to think about each of your close friends, and think about how each of them is helping you draw closer to God or is drawing you away from God.  And while you’re at it, how are you influencing your friends?

I understand that if someone has an addiction, one important step in the recovery process is to cut ties with old friends who would cause you to relapse.  After all, if they cause you to relapse, they are helping destroy you, so are they really a friend?

I’ll close with James 4:4, which says, “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.”

-Steve Mattison

Today’s Bible reading passages can be read or listened to at BibleGateway here – 2 Chronicles 23-24 and Romans 11

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