How to Oppose the Heart of God

on Jan 31 in Everyday Life

Quick.

When I say the word “worldly”, or the phrase “love the world”, where does your mind immediately go?

Sin?

Maybe some specific sin?

Maybe adultery.

Maybe lying or cheating.

Maybe pornography.¬† That’s a good one.

But if we were to ask the brother of Jesus what he thought about that question, he’d say something different.¬† Actually, he’s already said something different.¬† In James 4, the brother of Jesus ties together two thoughts that I’ve never seen before…

³When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

James is telling people that, when they ask God to give them things for themselves and their own pleasures, God doesn’t respond to that.

Then, in the very next verse, James actually labels people who ask God for selfish things.

⁴You 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.

So is he really saying that, when I pray to God for stuff that will make my life more pleasurable, I actually end up being a friend of the world, and a hater of God?¬† He can’t possibly be saying that.

Right?

Or is James saying that all of us have an automatic propensity to get selfish with the things we pray for?  And that when we fall into ONLY praying for our own stuff, and completely miss praying for people who are broken and hurting in our communities and our world, we actually side with the world, and put the heart of God on the back-burner?

Seems pretty straight-forward to me.  When we get selfish with our prayers, we actually oppose the very heart of God.

Whoops.

I gotta tell you something – I’m gonna stop using the words “me”, “my”, and “mine” when I pray.

Effective immediately.

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