⁴You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

Camping up his prophetic charge, James now equates acting on the temptation to satisfy the lusts of our hearts to spiritual adultery. James evokes the OT imagery of Israel being God’s straying wife (Jer. 31:32, Ez. 16:32–34, Hos. 2:10). For Jewish believers, to whom James writes (James 1:1), this would have been a jarring address; to use a modern colloquialism, James slams them!

The early church was not quite as pristine as some would have us believe. Yes, the Holy Spirit was working in phenomenal ways, but Satan was at work also. And the old human nature, the flesh, was still active, as it is today. We know the future of temptation and sin, and the perfection that awaits us in glory, but we still live in this world with all its enticements and lures. James has already addressed this struggle in chapter one. Now he appeals to our hearts, to our affections, our desires. The question is this: do you want to be friends with the world or with God? Which is it? One can complain, go to Christian self-help seminars and conflict resolution conferences, read books, and work hard at the dynamics of life skills, but unless we address the real desires, we are no different from people who do not have Christ.

The word “friendship” is related to the Greek word “philos,” meaning brotherly love or affection. On one level, the term could be applied to relationships: do we value our friendships with non-Christians more than with fellow Christians? But on a broader level, do we desire a life more intimately motivated by worldly desires than godly desires? God wants our complete fidelity, our loyalty to Him above all and exclusive of all.

Jesus spoke in similar absolute terms; our affection for Christ must completely eclipse all other loyalties and commitments:

“If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.” (Luke 14:26)

Are we to take this literally? Absolutely yes! Does this sound cult-like? Absolutely not! When we put Christ completely first, only then are we committed to obeying what He teaches us to do in Scripture, which includes loving (with agape love) our families and the unsaved world. But the sequence must never be confused; putting our affections or love of anything else first may not turn sour for us, but God will consider it adultery, disloyalty to Him!

Lord, I desire Your friendship more than anything else.