Fear No Fear

“You adulterers and adulteresses, do you not know that the friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God” (James 4:4, MEV). God loves us enough to make us part of His family. Which means we are NOT part of the world. Yet we still chase it, don’t we? We look to it for things to do. We look to it for recreation. We look to it for entertainment. We look to it for conversation. We look to it for partnership. We look to it a LOT. Now it isn’t that we aren’t allowed to enjoy the physical/visible things of the world. We are in the world. We’re going to interact with it. It’s where we keep our stuff. The question is always the MOTIVATION we have in doing it. What the heart intent is. And the other question that can come up is whether what we are interacting with is building up or alienating us. Are the things we’re doing, participating in, watching/listening to putting walls up between us and God or not? There is a difference between liking a film that has a lot of action and liking a film that is worshipping death/killing. There is a difference between enjoying a piece of music and enjoying a piece of music that is encouraging ungodly behaviour. There is a line there. Only God can tell you where it is. Because it can be subtle. And what triggers you will be different as your relationship with God deepens. There is stuff that amused me ten years ago that can’t get a smile out of me now. Other than blatantly ungodly things, there is no firm rules to follow. They will be different with everyone based on where you are with God, what you’re like as a person, and where you battles are being fought. Only God can tell us what is best for us to avoid and what is okay. We need to be checking in with Him. Not only does that help protect us from stuff it is better not to put our minds on, it also helps us keep Him front and centre where He belongs. Instead of enjoying something and later wondering if God approved, we can put Him first. We can check in with Him. We can investigate ahead of time and honour Him. We KNOW He won’t keep anything good from us, so if He asks you to rethink something, there IS a reason. We may understand it. We may not. He may not explain. He doesn’t owe us explanations. But we owe Him our obedience because we’ve made Him our King and Lord. God loved us enough to make us family. Respect the family and keep in accord with His moral character. It makes ALL the difference in our interactions with Him. It’s the foundation of our trust. It’s a great opportunity to please Him. The world doesn’t care about Him. We do. Our lives should reflect that.