DAY 12
DEVELOPING YOUR FRIENDSHIP WITH GOD
Draw close to God and God will draw close to you.James 4:8 (NLT)
You are as close to God as you choose to be.
Like any friendship, you must work hard to develop your friendship with God.
It takes desire, time and energy. If you want a deeper, more intimate
relationship with God you must learn to be completely honest with Him
and share your feelings openly, trust Him when He asks you to do something,
learn to care what He cares about, and desire His friendship more than
anything else.
I must choose to be honest with God. The lst building block to a friendship
with God - is to honestly share your faults and feelings. In the Bible the
friends of God were honest about their feelings. In one startling example
of friendship, God who was disgusted with Israel's disobedience, said He
wasn't going one step farther with them in the Promised Land. He was fed
up! Moses spoke honestly to Him and let God know how he felt. Can
God handle that kind of intense honesty from us? Absolutely. Genuine
friendship is built on disclosure. What may appear as audacity God views
as authenticity. God listens to the passionate words of His friends; He is
bored, with pious predictable cliches.
Bitterness is the greatest barrier to friendship with God. Why did God allow
this to happen? The antidote of course is to realize that God works in your
best interest always, even when it is painful and you don't understand it.
But releasing your resentment and revealing your feeling is the lst step to
healing.
In the Bible the friends of God were honest about their feelings, often
COMPLAINING, SECOND-GUESSING, ACCUSING AND ARGUING
with their Creator. God however didnt seem to be bothered by this frankness,
in fact He encouraged it. God also listened patiently to David's accusations
of unfairness, betrayal and abandonment. Abraham PESTERED God ..........
God did not slay Jeremiah when he claimed that God had tricked him. Job was
allowed to vent his bitterness during his ordeal, and in the end, God defended
Job for being honest, and He rebuked Job's friends for being unauthentic.
God told them "You haven't been honest either with me or about me - not the
way my friend Job has.... My friend Job will now pray for you and I will
accept his prayers". We should take the mature viewpoint that God uses
EVERYTHING for good in our lives.
Its encouraging to know that all of Gods closest friends - Moses, David,
Abraham, Job and others had bouts with doubt. Expressing DOUBT is
sometimes the lst step toward the next level of intimacy with God. Instead
of masking their misgivings the expressed them openly and publically.
I must choose to obey God in faith. Jesus made it clear that obedience
is a condition of intimacy with God. He said, "You are my friends if you do
what I command". He is our loving leader and we should follow Him gladly.
We obey God not out of duty or fear or compulsion but because we
LOVE Him and trusts that He knows what is best for us. We WANT to
follow Christ out of gratitude for all He has done for us, and the closer we
follow Him, the deeper our friendship becomes. True friendship is
not passive; it ACTS. When Jesus asks us to love others, help the needy,
share our resources, keep our lives clean, offer forgiveness and bring others
to Him, love motivates us to obey Him immediately. God is more pleased
when we do small things for Him out of loving obedience than even great
acts. God notices these small acts and considers them acts of worship. Even
through such simple acts as telling the truth, being kind and encouraging others,
we bring a smile to God's face. God treasures simple acts of obedience more
than our prayers, praise, or offerings. Jesus' 30 years of pleasing God were
summed up in 2 words he "lived obediently". "He went back to Nazareth
with them, and lived obediently with them". Luke 2:51 (Msg)
I must choose to value what God values. This is what friends do - the care
about what is important to the other person. God's agenda and passion was
Paul's: "The thing that has got me so upset is this - that I care about you so
much - this is the passion of God burning inside me" 2 Corinthians 11:2 (Msg)
David felt the same way: "those who insult you are also insulting me". Psalm
69:9 (NLT) "Those who reject You, reject me".
What does God care about most? The redemption of His people. He wants
all His lost children found! Thats the whole reason Jesus came to earth.
The dearest thing to the heart of God is the death of His Son. The second
dearest thing is that his children share the news with others. To be a friend
of God you must care about all the people around you God cares about.
Friends of God tell their friends about God.
I must desire friendship with God above all else. David passionately desired
to know God above all else, he craved God. He used words like longing,
yearning, thirsting, hungering "The thing I seek most of all is the privilege
of meditating in His Temple, living in His presence every day of my life,
delighting in His incomparable perfections and glory". Psalm 27:4 (LB)
"Your love means more than life to me". Psalm 63:3 Jacob's passion for
God's blessing on his life was so intense that he wrestled in the dirt all night
with God, saying "I will not let you go unless you bless me". Genesis 32:26
(NIV) The amazing part of that story is that God, who is all powerful,
let Jacob win! God isnt offended when we "wrestle" with Him, because
wrestling requires personal contact and brings us close to Him! It is also
a passionate activity, and God loves it when we are passionate with Him.
"My determined purpose is that I may know Him - that I may progressively
become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and
recognizing and understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly
and more clearly". Philippians 3:10 (Amp)
The truth is you are as close to God as you choose to be. Intimate friendship
with God is a choice, not an accident. You must intentionally seek it. Do you
really want it - more than anything? What is it worth to you? Is it worth
giving up other things? Is it worth developing the habits and skills required?
If youve just been going through the moves spiritually dont be surprised when
God allows pain in your life. Pain is the fuel of passion - it energizes us
with an intensity to change that we dont normally possess. C S Lewis -
pain is God's megaphone. It is Gods way of arousing us from spiritual
lethargy. Your problems are not punishment, they are wake-up calls from
a loving God. God is not mad at you; He is mad about you and He will do
whatever it takes to bring you back into fellowship with Him. There is nothing
- absolutely nothing more important that developing a friendship with God.
It's a relationship that will last forever.
There is an easier way to reignite your passion for God; start asking God
to give it to you,and keep on asking till you have it. Pray this throughout
your day: "Dear Jesus, more than anything else, I want to get to know you
intimately". Paul told Timothy: "Some of these people have missed the
most important thing in life - they don't know God". 1 Timothy 6:21a (LB)
QTC What practical choices will I make today in order to grow close to
God?
do what I am doing and keep it up. Read, listen to worship music, talk to
God, pray to God, try to be ever in His Presence, listen to God, when
Trisha is here we will go to church regularly and do ministry; prepare
myself for ministry.
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