Who are you friends with?

Did you know that there is a wrong way to pray? 

You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. 4 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. 

James 4:3–4 (ESV)

To maintain any relationship, communication is important. Talking to God (prayer) is important to grow, deepen, and solidify your relationship with God, but did you know there’s a wrong way to do it? The Bible is full of what you may consider outrageous ways to pray - people plead with God, try to change His mind, rant at Him, shout at Him, question Him. Yet this God considers ok, and the people that talk to Him like that are the people God considers friends! These people are telling God how they are really doing, what they are thinking and hoping. You can do the same - this is an acceptable way to talk to God. However if all you are speaking to God about is asking Him for things that you want just for your own self-satisfaction then that is not the right way to pray. James lets us know that asking for your passions and desires to be granted is not ok. It shows that you’ve put yourself and your wants first, not God. If you approach God as just an entity that can solve your problems and provide your desires, where’s the relationship? It is like approaching God as you would an online supermarket - preparing your shopping list beforehand, putting it all in the basket and then checking out - transaction complete. Is that how you pray? If so, know that God wants more for you. He wants to be your friend. 

How you pray shows what you think of your relationship with God and the world. In your prayer life are you asking God to make your life better and easier on Earth, or are you asking God to help you make known His kingdom here on Earth? Are you praying for worldly satisfaction or help to see things God’s way? This shows who you are choosing to be friends with - God or the world. If you’re a friend of God, you must be an enemy of the world and all it represents, so be mindful of that as you pray. 

You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.

Consider now, what do you want your life to be about? Are you choosing to follow the worlds way or God’s? How you pray demonstrates what you’re about. These verses accept and acknowledge that temptation and sin exist - do you allow these things to dominate you and your prayer life? For example, do you ask God for money just because you want to spend it on things you know you shouldn’t? That’s just one example of what these verses are talking about. 

So then, how should you pray? Are you not allowed to ask God for things? Of course you are! Just think about what you’re asking for and why - in all honesty, are the things you are asking for in line with God’s best for your life? Are you asking for things you know that God wouldn’t want for you? If so, you are not being God’s friend. Imagine keep asking a friend to do something that they feel really uncomfortable with or that they know is wrong, at some point you’re likely to lose that friend and cause serious damage to that relationship. You yourself will become frustrated, angry and disappointed. We know that God is not like any human friend, He does have infinite patience and grace to forgive you and keep listening to you, but if you continue to pray for the things of the world, for passions and desires that are loved by the world but not by God, how is that going to effect you and how you see the relationship you have with God? 

whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 

You cannot be friends of God and the world. The world will lead you to sin and spiritual death, God will lead you out of it and into life. Which are you friends with? You cannot be friends with both. You cannot entertain and enjoy sin whilst saying you are a friend of God, it is not possible. Whoever you’re a friend with, whether God or the world, you’re automatically an enemy of the other. Jesus clearly tells us that you cannot serve two masters (Matthew 6:24), so you cannot serve the temptations and passions of the world and serve God, so what is your choice?