“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
“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.” (Matt 5:48, James 4:4)
You are warmly welcome! This year we focus on the theme: Imitating God’s Goodness by Doing Good.
And following our theme, and as we start our climax week of Prayer and Revival, Jesus teaching in Matt 5 deals with many practical issues and ends with the challenge: be perfect. Think about it. We also find a clearly pointed admonition in the Epistle of James – believed to be James the Lord’s brother, who was Bishop of Jerusalem. He calls upon his hearers and us all to arise from the dark pattern of this world, this age, and resist and cease to be friends with the world but cultivate a friendship with God. He clearly points out the problems of the former and abhorrent position, and the justification and benefits of the latter and preferred relationship.
The problems James speaks about in the first century are common in our own generation eons later, because their engine and root cause is the same. Wars and fights, lust, murder, frustrations as a result of insatiable greed and selfish prayers – all these are here among us or our neighbours as a result of pursuing the pattern of “this world”! This refers, as McArthur points out, to the system of beliefs, values – or the spirit of the age – at any time current in the world. This sum of contemporary thinking and values forms the moral atmosphere of our world and is always dominated by Satan. You can easily name many evil agenda and policies receiving substantial funding and perennial sponsorship today – displaying the reign of the enemy and the anti-Christ; but these patterns of the world are resistible and have been successfully escaped by many faithful believers – of low and high public and royal ranks, and of men and women, young and old across the long timeline. So, you too are encouraged similarly.
Those on the race to satisfy carnal appetites with worldly pleasures will reap again and again those problems James speaks of. Is this our destiny? We are made for a much better and higher purpose than just indulging in the pleasures the world runs after. “Do not be like the children of the world, you who have been made children of God,” says Pelagius, “but renew your mind, by which the body is governed and all the members are directed. Thus, even the movements of the body will be renewed, so that you may be able to recognize the will of God and his mind, for these are revealed only to a renewed mind.” Your light has come to dispel all attacking darkness. Your light is Jesus Christ, and in Him we can break free from the besetting patterns of this world and arise and shine.
Happy New Year! God bless you abundantly!
Rev. Eng. Dr. Emmanuel Mwesigwa - CHAPLAIN