Spiritual Adultery

	You adulterers! Don't you realize that friendship with this world makes you an enemy of God? I say it again, that if your aim is to enjoy this world, you can't be a friend of God.
	— James 4:4

When the devil uses this world to appeal to the sinful bent inside us, all hell can break loose in our lives. James 4 likens this flirting with the world as unfaithfulness, or spiritual adultery.

This analogy of unfaithfulness is used often in Scripture. The Bible likens the church to the bride of Christ. We are to be loyal to Him. We are to be faithful to Him. And to have another god would be the same as leaving one's spouse for someone else.

God used this analogy to describe the wayward wanderings of His own people, Israel. He said, "For my people have done two evil things: They have forsaken me—the fountain of living water. And they have dug for themselves cracked cisterns that can hold no water at all!" (Jeremiah 2:13).

A broken cistern was like having a well with holes in it. And when we lose our passion for Jesus and go after other things, the same can happen to us...

 

(Thanks to Greg Laurie for this great excerpt! Visit www.harvest.org for more information, and the rest of this article.)