The people of the United States ought to be thankful for the riches God has poured down upon our nation. We have been blessed in home life, education, business, research, and government like few nations in the history of the world. These blessings have served to provide a superior quality of life and comfort when compared with most people.
Yet despite these superior provisions the vices tearing at the fiber of our nation are common to all people. Despite our TVs, DVDs, cell phones, modern cars, comfortable homes, and computers we continue to battle against murder, murder in the womb, adultery, lies, greed, lust, selfishness, hate, hypocrisy, and fear. Our nation, though wonderful in many ways, is still dead from thirst.
Don't be fooled into thinking that Democracy, Capitalism, or modern innovation will satisfy this thirst. Most Americans have all of these and yet many are simply "Mad in the USA." You don't believe me? Visit a courtroom sometime and watch your countrymen fight for their rights. All these goodies have served absolutely no purpose in satisfying our true thirst. They haven't cured our thirst any more than would a tall cool drink of sand.
The New Testament writer James, however, offers this refreshing water to drink,
1) Where do wars and fightings among you come from? Don't they come from your pleasures that war in your members? 2) You lust, and don't have. You murder and covet, and can't obtain. You fight and make war. You don't have, because you don't ask. 3) You ask, and don't receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. 4) You adulterers and adulteresses, don't you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.James 4:1-4 (WEB)
James does not cover up our problem with yet one more American idol. Instead he tells us that each person has a cancerous battle of sin waging within. We are all sinners with a desperate need for the Lord. The problem or solution is not our form of government, education, or business. But rather will you remain friends with the world or become friends with the Lord Jesus Christ?
