Day 4057 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

James 4:4 NIV

An enemy’s enmity

It’s much like a friend’s foolishness in that they either with whom or against who we choose to live, to think, to walk, to talk, to believe, these same are seen as through a lens of what is a personal bias as is always based upon our own personal measure in regard to how much they matter and to what direction they do. For friendship invites us to overlook the many little imperfections that are always present within a person while an enemy’s mindset is rather sat upon at first finding said flaws and then figuring out how best to use them to one’s own advantage.

Problem then becoming that, in this case at least, we have no advantage in seeking to use God’s flaws, weaknesses, imperfections against Him.

Because He has none.

Rather we’ve merely become so dumb as a people who’ve long lived seeking friendship with one another, a decent and worthy pursuit commonly, but thus too with a people who have chosen to continue living as if He isn’t as is seen inside all that’s done down here that we shouldn’t. But again, this is where the foolishness of a friendship is always proven in that we’re entirely willing to overlook the idiocy of such an idea as that which inspires us to do all these things which shouldn’t be done.

All because so too are our friends dumb thanks to their too looking to the world for the commonly sought inspiration as to what to do with this particular vocation that we call a life.

For indeed, this journey is something of a job in which we do things for what we hope is a reward that’s been sadly left unto us alone to determine for ourselves to be a fair return upon our efforts. Letting then each and every person who’s presently alive to determine what they will and won’t do in their lives and the desired benefit they hope to be found in how they’re living it.

Leaving then us upon the thrones in these lives our own, calling each of us our own shots as we’ve seemingly not yet learned that we’re all only really good at shooting ourselves in the foot and then, for some reason unbeknownst at present, placing said shot foot in our mouths via the saying of some of the most verifiably stupid nonsense that we could ever have so sought to invent as that which is what seems still intent upon saying always that we are god and thus He is not.

Most of it simply because I think we all completely understand the gravity of our having already gotten this wrong and thus the guilt incurred in doing so.

But thankfully we’re presently surrounded by a still smoldering society more than ready and always willing to welcome us into a pact of friendship wherein, once in, we tell no truths, bury all lies, basically become glorified yes-men who exist only to say and do whatever it is another may so choose to fairly clearly make known they wish to see and hear from us if they’re to retain their interest in our friendship.

For again, there always has to be some return upon our every investment of any interest in, well, anything.

Friendship by no means removed.

In fact, this is pretty much where all my past relationships fell flat. It was due to this idea I’ve long held in mind in which friendship was designed to seek for the constant improvement, betterment of all those involved. Problem then is that there be but increasing few who seem to see the same things that I do. And while this is usually not at all a deal all that big to overcome as I mind not being alone and walking this path without the commonly sought companionships that this world remains awestruck by, it does cause some issues with whomever does come into my life.

Because long ago I lost the ability to see this as my life but rather as nothing more than my time to change my mind to fixing my life as was lived as if it was mine back when I had more friends who did the same and thus always sought the lack of change that I’m now seeking to undo and overcome.

Indeed, though I wondered for a while as to why all those “friends” I had are had no more, whether or not it was some I had done to cause them to walk away and prove to be nothing but strangers in waiting, the fact is that it was God who removed from me those around me who were influencing my life in what I see now were ways that were only preventing me from becoming who I am today.

Which, as non-boastfully as something like this could never possibly sound, is in fact better than I used to be.

And that only mostly because I still believe that I can be better still.

Not at all something I could have said back when I had all those friends gathered unto my life telling me all about how great I was at being a person I couldn’t see that I couldn’t wait to unbecome.

Strange how it works.

But then again, war is a strange business. Now granted, we don’t often see friendship as war nor then war as friendship. But thankfully He is indeed supremely patient with us, waiting for all of us to come to our senses and start setting fire to all these bridges that we’ve built that will always offer to help us cross back over to what either was or remains that way of life in which we live(d) as if we’ve something here we’re elsewise unable to lose.

Like companionship and the many acceptances and compliments that it typically comes with.

Indeed, anymore this seems the grand reward always assumed to be waiting within someone’s impressively passing interest in their being a friend to another. It’s approval. It’s acceptance. It’s applause and that because it signals an agreement unto this selfish appeasement that is this god-awful idea that is affirmation which seeks for nothing but to affirm, which is to confirm, that whatever it is that we’re saying, doing, thinking, believing just so happens to be the very same as that which we should be saying, doing, thinking and believing.

In other words, affirmation is this action enacted under the guise of caring in which the victim is always told all about how awesome they are so as to inspire them to change nothing.

Which, wouldn’t you know it, is exactly what we want to hear!

It’s truly that whole promise of itching ears. We’ve indeed gathered about ourselves a great number of teachers who tell us only what we want to hear whilst then always making very sure to avoid those topics and tempests that we’ve no interest in ever acknowledging.

Such as how we suck at this life thing.

Yeah, we don’t like hearing such things.

Not because they’re not the truth, because they are, but rather simply because what we’ve become is nothing short of these personal gods who then can do no wrong and thus deserve nothing but the praise and adoration for which and toward which all modern relationships move. It’s all done seeking only to approve of everything another person does so as to hopefully reap this harvest of what is our hope of their doing the same unto us.

And, well, I just can’t see much to gain in continuing to do such a thing.

Why?

Well, if we’d ever stop to take an honest look at what this world’s inspired people to become, we’d not really want their help in our eventually becoming the same.

Which, in all sad reality, is pretty much all that most friendships seek. It’s this general sense of identity whereby we gather about ourselves those who’ve similar interests, abilities, desires and identities as we have ourselves. This is how we make friends. It’s almost never with those with whom we’ve a glaring difference of opinion as that doesn’t seem to form the sort of solid foundation needed upon which anything lasting could ever be built.

No, we seek out those with whom we’ve things in common as those commonalities allow for a far easier ability to build such things as conversations spent talking about what’s then a topic about which we’ve both plenty of interest.

And, well, again looking at what this world’s become, I think it fair to say that the commonest of all common interests is that seen in what is a society that still exists as if God doesn’t.

Why seek friendship with that?

What benefit can such a belief ever bring us? How are we to ever be bettered by our seeking to find something in common with those who exist running away from Jesus? In what ways might our lives improve, or our living them, if all we seek to see or hear is only that which this world demands we agree with? Indeed, how might we be found acceptable to Him if we continue to live as if we accept that which is done down here?

Which, sadly, is pretty much all that most folks require for our to be their friends and they ours.

It’s acceptance. It’s agreement. It’s approval of whatever it is that they’re doing all so that they needn’t endure the sort of changing that the cross contends we’d better embrace if we’re to find anything of a better outcome upon that day toward which we’re all hurtling but still from which most here are continually hurdling.

As in jumping over those little bar things in the olympics.

Indeed, around these parts we basically all agree to start pretty much our every single day already warmed up and limber so as to jump over, under, to or through whatever we have to in what remains a world that refuses to change but rather just expects us to accept its ways.

Which we do because, well, we know that if we don’t we’ll be left to live this life all alone and that seems to remain one of the chief worries carried by most.

And, yeah, it can get a little boring, a little bland, sort of worrisome even whenever you start realizing just how little you have in common with the world around you. But there’ve been many who’ve survived prison camps in which they were seen, and probably felt, like the enemy.

Because, well, such is actually one of the most obvious guarantees in life.

It’s that we’re all going to be enemies of someone or something at some point. Because, well, we all stand for something or against something. I hope. But sadly even that is something that’s usually set aside whenever the topic of friendship is brought to our lives. Indeed, I cannot count the times that I used to say things or do things or the number of things that I’ve done that I now regret having said, done, not said or didn’t do all because I was hoping only to not lose what I thought was a genuine friendship.

With someone who has since become a stranger.

Indeed, I’ve said and done things that I now regret all in trying to keep hold of what I didn’t realize was already gone.

Now I just wonder how much harder that same pill will be to swallow should I show up to Judgment Day having in tow only all the worldliness that I found reason to walk in agreement with all so that I could be seen as a friend to someone who likely only wanted me in their lives for their own incessant need of personal validation.

Can’t do it anymore.

In fact, I’m now so against an idea like that that even my family has pointed out that I’ve become my own worst enemy.

And indeed, there are many days in which I don’t like me. Why? Because there are many days in which I still do things that I don’t like having done. I’ll slip and catch myself saying a word that I hate the taste of. I’ll have a thought that I know isn’t right to think. I’ll slip, I’ll stumble, I’ll once again sink right back into what are old habits that do indeed die hard.

Or don’t die at all so long as we have a passel of friends gathered around us telling us all about how amazing we are as we are.

Thankfully Jesus didn’t feed us that nonsense. Rather He calls fools, sinners, vipers even. Indeed, He cut to the chase and spoke out about how we’ve all come to waste what is this one chance that we have to live a life that’s found worthy of life itself continuing on forever.

Something He proved fully upon that hill that we call Calvary.

Because there He hung in our agony that we didn’t see as ours, many still blind to such a reality, simply because we’ve all become so very worldly that we think as the world thinks. We speak as the world speaks. We do as the world does.

And what does the world do?

DENY GOD!

It’s something done inside every foul word we say, every impure thought we think, every single second that we give unto doing something we shouldn’t do. Because the problem is that we know! We know the difference between good and evil, right and wrong, righteousness and wickedness. But you see, the problem is that our living in worldliness has only inspired in us a gross willingness to overlook all the above. No, whenever we’ve made friends with someone, at least in regard to this world’s understanding of friendship, we readily overlook whatever we need to so as to not lose their willingness to overlook our failures too.

This is the reward we seek.

Nothing more than mere applause.

Why?

Because it really hastens the cause that we’ve all chosen in which our lives remain frozen in place all because we don’t want to change because this version of life we’ve settled upon is one in which we feel pleasure, know success, have indeed experienced so much of such satisfactions that we think anymore that the only traction we need to keep is that which helps us to continue crossing those bridges we’ve built that the entire world warns us against burning.

Indeed, you don’t want to burn any bridges as you might need to cross them again one day.

It’s an idea spoken in regard to two-week notices at jobs we’ll never return to. It’s walking away amicably from a relationship just in case we ever wish to enter back into it. It’s leaving everything on good terms so that whomever else that might have been involved would too be ready and willing to take it up again should we ever express our desire to.

But friends, truth is that we’ll never improve in life if we don’t blow some bridges sky high so as ensure that we simply can’t go back.

Problem is that few here live like that.

No, sadly the only bridge that most here seem willing to burn that is of Jesus having come to help us learn that we are sinners in need of salvation, a free gift He does give unto all those who accept His patient invitation to come unto repentance wherein we turn from all we’d lived running toward.

Sounds a little like burning a bridge!

Why?

Because it was built to what was a life in which we’d joined with the world in their turning their backs upon He who created us to be far more than whatever this is that we’ve become.

Indeed, there remain few here who are seemingly willing to accept their role in this downfall that’s now befallen all of us. In fact, most here still refuse to accept that things are what they are. Rather most here continue to seek some best life lived in this one place in which all that every life is really promised is but taxes and death.

Yeah, good luck seeking your best in this place!

Problem is that such is what the world continues to do, and too, demands then we do too if we’re to be welcome here. Which is a problem that becomes perfectly personal in that we’ve all done just that. We’ve all lived to be liked by the world. We’ve all lived to please people. We’ve all bent over backwards and broken ourselves in pieces trying to find these pieces of what we thought was a perfect life lived so filled with fun and friends that the party never ends.

It will.

And in truth it’ll end soon.

Only question which then remains is where we’ll be standing when it’s all said and done.

Answer given in that Scripture’s already offered us one suggestion:

“Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind.”

For indeed, we’ve now no novel words, no untried ideas, no possible way of our saying anything new or doing anything freshly designed. Rather everything has been said, it all has been tried, we have all lived a life in which we gave everything we had to the gaining of everything here.

And yet that we know the sting of regret ought to cement that our doing as the world continues to do is probably not the smartest move.

Why?

Because this world hates God. In fact, this world hates itself! We are so surrounded with hatred, with hostility, with animosity and enmity that it’s amazing that we seem as if we don’t see it.

My how blind we’ve become!

Thankfully Christ came to open blinded eyes so that we could all see the violent need for change in our lives. Doesn’t mean we’ll ever agree to it as it’s instead pretty clear that most here are still staunchly opposed to even the mention of it. No, most here continue to live as if they can do no wrong despite not much here going right.

And they expect us all to join hands and sing along to this still going song that’s sung in hatred, in strife, in enmity against He who is the Life.

Enmity is defined as “the state or feeling of being actively opposed or hostile to someone or something”. It’s “a feeling or condition of hostility; hatred; ill-will; animosity; antagonism”.

And well, we are clearly a world that continues to antagonize God by doing nothing of what He asks us to and everything He asks us not to.

How much longer will we walk in agreement with that? How much longer will seek friendship with that? How much longer will we allow for this idea that we need this world’s help, acceptance, approval? Friends, we can see what this world approves of.

And we should know that He won’t share their estimations.

Because the cross tells a far different story.

Guess the question is which story are we reading? Is it the one in which this world is right and thus our lives justified in seeking friendship herein? Or is it the one in which the One came to be a friend of sinners so as to save them from their sins and the death they all deserve?

Yeah, one has a more enjoyable outcome found far sooner inside such rewards as friendship and fun. But folks, reaching Heaven’s gates carrying only a share of this world’s hate for He who holds their keys, well, probably won’t prove all that much fun.

Why?

Because forever is a really long time.

Far too long to have found out that He agreed with our desire to want nothing to do with Him. Indeed, He will accept our desire to be friends with this world.

Promised He will readily testify that He’s never known us should that be what we continue to choose.

Yes, He will prove either a friend or an enemy based upon how we lived seeing both Him and this world. Problem is this world is set in their enmity against Him.

Hopefully the same can’t be said of us.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold