You can't love God and the world

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(by James A. La Belle)

"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 4:4

It is my firm conviction that worldliness is destroying the church of Jesus Christ. The church is more and more becoming . . .
like the world,
indistinguishable from the world,
pursuers of the world,
lovers of the world.

Our relationship with Jesus Christ is hardly more than an appendage or appendix to our busy, worldly lives. We are no longer distinguished as separate, consecrated, pilgrims, sojourners, or holy unto the Lord; instead, we have . . .
eyes full of the world,
hearts in love with the world,
ears attentive to the world,
lips filled with worldly speech,
hands filled with worldly things,
feet comfortable with worldly paths, and
bodies no longer ready to depart and be with Jesus since that would mean giving up the world.

There is a heaven to be won and a hell to be shunned, and all those who have no visible, practical, transforming, determinative, self-denying, world-abhorring love for Jesus Christ--will be anathema at His coming!

"Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world--the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions--is not from the Father but is from the world." 1 John 2:15-16

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