Have you ever heard the term, “you can’t have your cake and eat it too”? We always want to have it both ways don’t we? We want to eat whatever we want, yet not gain any weight. We want to have expensive clothes and the latest tech gadgets, but we don’t want it to hurt our bank accounts. We want get away with neglecting our responsibilities at work and still get a raise or promotion. We want to have the best of both worlds with the consequences of neither. But one thing that life teaches us is that, more often than not, we can’t have it both ways. With God, that truth is even more stark and the results are even more devastating. In James chapter 4 verse 4 it says:
"You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God."
As the cultural temperature in America becomes more and more friendly with sin and reject more and more the values of God, we, as believers, must choose a side. We must decide who we will align our hearts with. Because even if we wanted to, we can’t have our cake and eat it to. We can’t have it both ways. James tells us that we are either friends with the world and an enemy of God. Or we are opposed to the philosophy of the world and are dedicated to the way of our creator. Where do you land? Do you find yourself more and more accepting cultural values and philosophies that are contrary to the holy scriptures? You can’t have it both ways, because James warns us that friendship with the world is hatred toward God.
---
I love the book of James because he never menses words. He is very blatant and very straight forward. Sometimes his words are hard to hear, but at times, they are exactly what we need to hear. He tells us that friendship with the world is hatred toward God; that when we become friends with the world we also become enemies of God. We can’t have it both ways. We can’t condone and agree with the moralistic and spiritual decay of our society while at the same time truthfully align ourselves with God. So I encourage you to heed this warning from James. With God, sin is sin. There is no gray area. If we begin to agree with the sin that our world says is good, then we automatically become enemies of God.