Where's Your Loyalty?

⁷ So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. ⁸ Come close to God, and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world. 
-James 4:7-8 (NLT)


Where is your loyalty this morning? Many times, we want to sound right, we want to play the part of someone who is right with God, so we'll answer "With God, of course!" Is that really the case? I don't want to sound judgmental, but is your loyalty really to God, or is it to yourself? It's a question I ask myself all the time. Do I really want what God wants? Do I really look at things through His perspective? 


James writes in James 4:8, "Come close to God, and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, purify your hears, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world." A phrase I use often during the weekly broadcasts is "You can't be a Christian on Sunday and a sinner on Monday." If we follow Jesus, then we follow Jesus. You can't expect to live and grow as God wants you to if your loyalty is not totally on Him. Too often, our loyalty to God only goes as far as the four walls of our church. God is fine while we're in church, but we don't want Him to invade our personal lives. James says, at the end of verse 8 that we are double minded. "for your loyalty is divided between God and the world." In the preceding verses, James writes about the fightings and divisions among believers. He talks about how we want what we don't have, and how we are willing to do whatever it takes to get what we want, and whatever expense it costs others. Look at his words in verse 4, "⁴ You adulterers! Don’t you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God? I say it again: If you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God." The Christian should be loyal to God, not friends of the world. To be a friend of the world means that you go with the flow of the world, that you are conformed to this world, meaning you love the things of the world, they hold a grasp on you, and you chase after the things the world chases after. James says that being like the world, being a friend of the world, makes you an enemy of God. Why? Because the world represents sin. The world is sick in sin, the world is full of sin. Sin cannot be in the presence of God. If you are full of sin from the world, God will not be with you. The choice is yours. Do you want to be loyal to God, or do you want to be a friend of the world?


If your choice is to be loyal to God, then James teaches us how. Verse 7 says,  "So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." If you want to get off the treadmill of the world, then you must humble yourself before God. The King James version says to submit yourself to God. That means that you give yourself fully, and wholly to God. You submit to His authority and His will for your life. That sounds like a big requirement, like a big commitment. You know what? It is. But the payoff of everlasting, eternal life is as well. You'll either spend eternity in Heaven, or in Hell. The choice is yours. One hint, though. If you're a friend of the world, then your eternity will not be with God. So, to become loyal to God, we must, first, submit to Him. Secondly, we should resist the devil. We need to resist the temptations of the world, we need to stay away from the things the world chases. Friends, make no mistake about this. We can only resist the devil if we first submit ourselves to God. Without that step, we will never resist the calling of the world. When we resist the devil, look what happens. "and he will flee from you." When we resist the devil, through the power of a life submitted to God, the devil will run. Next, we must come near to God. That's in verse 8. When we come near to God, God will come near to us. Finally, we must allow God to clean up the sin in our lives. 


It's your choice this day. What will you chose? Will you submit to God, or will your submit to the devil. Will you be loyal to God, or will your loyalty be to the world? Think About It.