This is the revelation that is shaping my life today – I can live in the love of God and yet operate as an enemy of love. The good news is God loves his enemies.
James 4:4 NIV
[4] You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.
Observation
It is always a matter of the heart when it comes to the things of God. There are two ways to live and they are mutually opposed. They fight for my love. The world has its shaping stories, in the West, they are dominated by capitalism, consumerism, the promotion of self to the position of the highest importance, and freedom to do as I please. When I get into bed with these stories, when they capture my heart, then I live an adulterous life, as I have chosen to live in the love of God. This “friendship” sets you in opposition to the ways of heaven, at enmity against God. It doesn’t call into question God’s love for me, that is never in question, but my lover asks me to return to her bed.
The call of scripture is to be aware of the shaping influences of life and to choose to walk in the ways of love. This does not earn my lover’s approval but it enjoys the ways of love, it releases me to be the true self me, the man of love. God is jealous for my best and calls my adultery for what it is to him. I can see the depth of God’s love here for me. He is not prepared to share me with the world, not for his good but for mine.
One of the things I love about walking with God is that she brings me to a level of self-awareness that I never once had. She enables me to see the true me, made in his image me, then contrasts that with the operating me. She enables me to become aware of what is inconsistent in my thinking, my behaviour, my emotions, and my responses. Where I am whoring myself to the world. Then there is this beautiful journey where I become aware of his glorious other way of being, and the journey of healing and freedom from the world into his ways of love. Joy becomes the strength for this journey as I see her ways in all their beauty and then comes the death to the world and the resurrection to new life of love. The gift of personal awareness is the start of the beautiful journey of being the real me, the one who walks intimately in relationship with my God.
Application
Seek out, and posture myself for self-revelation. Invite my lover to inspect my heart so that I may know what is in me. Become aware of the conflict, the adultery, my operating as an “enemy” of love, and submit to the journey of death and resurrection. Know that love is not on the line, but my adultery to lesser loves is what is being exposed.
Response
Thank you that you love me so deeply that you call my adultery to self-awareness and repentance. Thank you that you are for me, for my best, for you are my best, so all that stands in contradiction to your presence expressed in me is an enemy in our midst. Thank you that the life of love, being loved and being love, is your passionate desire and call for my life. Thank you that you are jealous for my best. I love being loved like this.
Meditation
Meditate- friendship with the world means enmity against God.
Consider:
Do you invite self-awareness and the inspection of your heart?
Do you have rhythms of presence where self-awareness and journeys of healing and freedom can happen?
JOURNEY DEEPER