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. (English Standard Bible, James 4:4)
What begins as a look, progresses as desire lurches increasingly towards opportunity. The imagined occurrence becomes a yearning and the yearning is given life, as it obsesses and gathers focus and energy. At some given moment, when what was envisioned becomes available, what was desired in the adulterous heart will be greedily taken as a possession. The after-effects are disastrous, as the consequences begin to weigh on the evaporating and elusive vision of what was imagined. Often, what was lost in severed relationships and what was hoped for is revealed to be disastrous and false, full of empty promises. Such is the course of adultery.
Adultery is not just the sexual abandonment of a partner in a relationship. It can also be abandoning any covenanted committed role, love, or affection in any relationship for a replacement. It doesn’t matter if the adultery occurs in a marital, familial, or even spiritual relationship. Much is damaged or lost in the choosing of false illusions and empty promises found in adultery of any kind.
Adultery always leaves damage. It always leaves a void in what was promised and what is delivered. In spiritual matters, a mighty distance or a gulf is left when we abandon or forsake the Living God for the countless false gods of money, position, power, and pleasure. Adultery lures because it promises much, but don’t be fooled, adultery in any form will only deliver damage.
When we involve ourselves in friendship with the world and choose a relationship with anything that distances us from Christ; it is adultery. Christ desires our complete devotion. Our relationship with Him is exclusive and it is full of blessing, purpose, and life (John 10:10). Live in the truth. Reject all false illusions, no matter how alluring if they take you away from Christ. The Holy Spirit resides in us to guide us into a deeper relationship with Christ and reveal anything adulterous and damaging. Beware of the adulterous heart, trust, and follow the Holy Spirit.