If God is for you, who can be against you?
Nothing in the world beats knowing and having God on our side. When God is for us, it means He is thinking, speaking, acting and doing everything in our favor. His blessing is with us and upon our lives and everything we are and have. He blesses us and those who bless us, and is equally against everyone who stands against us. He is our friend; friendly toward all who love us, while unfriendly toward everyone who hates us. In this sense, we really do not have any enemy because God himself fights the devil, our arch enemy and all his human agents, on our behalf.
If God is against you, who can be for you?
If we can flip that question and ask, if God is against us, who can be for us? I know how terrible that sounds in the ear? No one wants to read that let alone experiencing God as being against them? When God is against us, it means He is thinking, speaking, acting and doing everything against us and to our downfall. His blessing is taken away from us and from upon our lives and from everything we are and have. He curses us and those who support us, and is against everyone who stands with us. He becomes our foe and fights all who stand with us. The worst part of that experience is that we have two or more enemies, God, the devil and his human agents.
Can a Loving God really be your enemy?
I know the question on your mind, can God really become an enemy? By his nature, God is Love and his love is without conditions towards us, and He is so gentle and patient with us in our short fall and shortcomings. He goes the extra mile to reach out to us even when we mess up and reject him. Romans 5:6 – 8 says: “Look at it this way: At the right time, while we were still helpless, Christ died for ungodly people. Finding someone who would die for a godly person is rare. Maybe someone would have the courage to die for a good person. Christ died for us while we were still sinners. This demonstrates God’s love for us”.
If God is Love by nature, as found in 1 John 5:8, then how can he ever become our enemy? There is only one thing that can make us become enemies of God, and that is carnality or worldliness. Let’s examine three scriptures that describe this well.
Romans 8:5 – 9: 5 Those who live as their human nature tells them to, have their minds controlled by what human nature wants. Those who live as the Spirit tells them to, have their minds controlled by what the Spirit wants. To be controlled by human nature results in death; to be controlled by the Spirit results in life and peace. And so people become enemies of God when they are controlled by their human nature; for they do not obey God’s law, and in fact they cannot obey it. Those who obey their human nature cannot please God (Good News).
James 4:4: Unfaithful people! Don’t you know that to be the world’s friend means to be God’s enemy? If you want to be the world’s friend, you make yourself God’s enemy (Good News).
1 John 2:15-17: Don’t love the world’s ways. Don’t love the world’s goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father. Practically everything that goes on in the world—wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important—has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him. The world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out—but whoever does what God wants is set for eternity (The Message).
How might you lose God on your side?
If you think about it deeply, it is not so much about God becoming our enemy as it is we turning our back on him and becoming his enemy. Either way, we can flip the coin of his favor against ourselves and easily become God’s enemy by forsaking him and choosing to live under the influences of the world and sinful nature. When we choose to be the world’s friend, wanting our own way, wanting everything for ourselves, wanting to appear important, it squeezes out love for the Father from us, and isolates us from him. It keeps us out of the Father’s reach. It might seem small to us, we might still be religious, but might no longer be his friend. He might no longer be for us and our side. We might have become his enemy.
How might you continually have God on your side?
But it doesn’t have to be that way if we would learn to judge ourselves and live as the Spirit tells us to, having our minds controlled by what the Spirit wants, because the Holy Spirit knows what the Father wants. What exactly is the essence of all this warning? It is to remind us about how easy it is to become God’s enemy in today’s crazy world and to keep us on our toes so that we don’t cross the line. And for those who have crossed the line, God’s love and mercy is calling, return to the Father, do away with the world, and submit to the leadership of the Holy Spirit, so that you can return to being on the side of God, where He is for you and no one can stand against you!
