Today we will conclude our discussion on “friendship with the world.”
If you have missed any of our previous discussion segments you can find them….
Yesterday we defined the terms “friendship with the world from James 4 and 1 John 2
Here’s the problem. Most of us mess with Mr. In Between. We do the absolute opposite of what we should do. We make friends with the world by accentuating the negative in our lives and by eliminating the positive.
We build up pride in our achievements and call it self-improvement or positive affirmation. I have no problem with saying someone did a good job or even “I did a good job”; But if I fail to recognize the role God plays in my success, if I take His credit then it is pride!
We encourage ourselves to hunger and thirst after lifestyles God never meant us to have by buying into the thought that Jesus intends everyone to have the best and newest of everything and so we begin to spend our resources for our own wants and needs rather than investing our resources with the Kingdom in mind. Folks when you get to Heaven God is not going to ask you what cable package you had or what television you watched it on. He is going to ask what you did with the resources HE gave you. He is going to ask you how what you did pointed other people towards Him.
Finally, we accentuate a life focused around forward advancement creature comforts and worldly success and pleasure and we eliminate the place of prayer.
God is challenging us in these days. God is challenging us towards relationship because He loves us. God has great things in store for you. God has amazing miracles in store for you. Some of you God would use to bring restoration to your family. Some of you are about to learn what it means to walk in a healing anointing. Some of you are about to be used as prophets. I believe there are people reading who are about to go on incredible God adventures . Some of you may have the opportunity to lay your hands on cancer patients and watch them recover. Some may even be given the opportunity to see the dead raised and lepers cleansed as you pray. But before He can do any of that you need to let go of your friendship with the world because it is holding you back.Mr. In Between is holding you back. Perhaps you have sold out for a paycheck. Maybe you have given up on God’s plan because you know it will displease someone important to you. You are holding back because you know the anointing means getting rid of your pet sin or that impure relationship.
Can I encourage you with these words of Jesus from the Gospel of Mark?
Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel 30will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. 31But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”
There is a price to pay for the life God wants you to have. But the price is never higher than the reward, even when the price is everything you have. So I dare to call you today. Will you leave behind your friendship with the world today and give everything to Jesus? He will give everything He has to you.
Lillie-Put 