Friends of the World, or Pleasure Seeking

So, this is gonna be long. Bear with me.

James 4:2-6 - You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on pleasures. 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. Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us? But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: "God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble."

James 4:7-10 - Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will life you up.

OUCH! When I read this, I couldn't help but think that some of it was directed just toward me. Of course, I also can see patterns in the world today with what this is talking about. We live in an extremely self-fulfilling, self-gratifying, pleasure-seeking, do-it-ourselves world.

It's not like that's really new either. The world has been like this for a long time. Generations of people have acted this way. And many people from those generations have chosen instead to humble themselves and glorify and serve God instead of succumbing to worldly desires and pressures.

Even we who believe in God sometimes do not ask of Him with the right attitude. Before asking, I think we should truly search our hearts and think "Why am I asking for this? Is it to glorify God, to further serve Him? Or is it for personal gain and pleasure?"

So, that's my thought for today. I was originally going to tackle a post about jealousy, but found this chapter of James to be much more relevant today.