Last week, we looked at James’s warning about “friendship with the world.” That lesson heavily focused on what you do—which is a major theme throughout the book of James. We exposed bad “acting,” from high-grade moral failures to the low-grade, subtle compromises. The truth is, worldliness has a sneaky way of creeping up on us when we least expect it.

But today, we are going to pivot from how you act to how you think. James calls this “wisdom.”

Here is the fundamental truth we have to come to terms with: Bad acting starts with bad thinking. Long before you ever act out on a high-grade or low-grade sin, you start thinking about the world in the wrong way. And in today’s culture, this is tougher than ever before. We are constantly bombarded with a flood of ideas. Many of these ideas “ring true” because they sound kind, tolerant, or loving on the surface—or they simply appeal to our “flesh.” But upon further inspection, they are completely unbiblical.