Broken business model
James 4:4-6 Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”? 6 But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: “God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble.”
When I stepped down from pastoral ministry back into the business world, God truly laid on my heart a vision of how to operate the marketplace ministry he had given me. When he first grabbed hold of my heart years ago, there was a transformation of the business into a ministry model as a result of me needing an outlet for my growing faith and heart to share. That same bend has now grown to a vision and a place that the world will not understand, likely go against, and make little common sense to many. Am I friends with the world, the business model of the world, or do I trust the One who created and sustains all that is in the world? God is my CEO, I simply manage the work that He provides.
It is hard to pull passages from this fourth chapter of James and isolate into short ministries. This fourth chapter is all about your heart for the world, or your heart for God. This chapter speaks dearly to me for my testimony is rooted in pride, and James the half-brother of Jesus clearly understands that all sin is rooted in pride. James did not even believe his brother was the Christ until after he rose from the dead. God stirred James heart to the point James wrote the first book of the New Testament. James too simply could not contain his faith and needed an outlet; the Holy Spirit took that heart and helped him pen the words that this epistle speaks so clearly to us today. If you claim the Bible is an outdated book irrelevant to us today, read this epistle and tell me how your heart can be that hard and your mind that blind. Repent & believe!
The scripture after this speaks to that heart of worldliness versus the humble heart that sees their need for God; the heart that sees their sin and need for a Savior from it. A humble heart recognizes the power Satan has been granted in the world; the humble heart sees the sin of the world and their heart for it too. 7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded 9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. If you are a driven, prideful person that has their eyes on some lofty goal of success that is measured by worldly standards, how will you take it with you? We are told in the Bible all measured by the worldly standards will perish; everything is tested by fire, and an eternal fire awaits all here that measured their life by success and not by humility. The Bible tells us that the first will become last, and the last first. If you are desiring to be at the top here, are you prepared to look up from the bottom for eternity to those in heaven? All that matters for your short time here on earth is your eternal investment; your investments in people, prayer, ministries, and helping to spread the gospel to all that have not heard, or those who have refused to listen.
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