James. A 21-day reading plan by Doxa Deo.Sample

 James 4:1-5 (ESV) What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you?  Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder.  You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel.  You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people!  Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?  Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, "He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us"?

We cannot serve God and serve the world at the same time. We cannot be friends of God and also be friends of ungodly systems and beliefs. Christ-centred living transforms me completely. In Christ, I am a friend of God! 

1 John 2:15-17 (MSG) Don’t love the world’s ways.  Don’t love the world’s goods.  Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father.  Practically everything that goes on in the world—wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important—has nothing to do with the Father.  It just isolates you from him.  The world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out—but whoever does what God wants is set for eternity.

Instead of being influenced by the ungodly, we should be changing our world by doing God’s will!

Reflection:

Are you a friend of God? 

Are you allowing God to change your world – through you? Are you a city changer?