“Developing Your Friendship with God”
“The Purpose Driven Live”
You are as close to God as you choose to be.
Like any friendship, you must work at developing your friendship with God. It won’t happen by accident. It takes desire, time, and energy
He offers his friendship to the godly. 📖 — Proverbs 3:32
Draw close to God, and God will draw close to you. 📖 — James 4:8
1. I must choose to be honest with God.
The first building block of a deeper friendship with God is complete honesty-about your faults and your feelings. God doesn’t expect you to be perfect, but he does insist on complete honesty.
None of God’s friends in the Bible were perfect. If perfection was a requirement for friendship with God, we would never be able to be his friends.
In the Bible, the friends of God were honest about their feelings, often complaining, second- guessing, accusing, and arguing with their Creator. God, however, didn’t seem to be bothered by this frankness; in fact, he encouraged it.
God allowed Abraham to challenge him over the destruction of the city of Sodom. Job was allowed to vent his bitterness during his ordeal.
Moses, speaking as a “friend” of God, responded with equal candor: “`Look, you tell me to lead this people but you don’t let me know whom you’re going to send with me…. If I’m so special to you, let me in on your plans…. Don’t forget, this is YOUR people, your responsibility…. If your presence doesn’t take the lead here, call this trip off right now! How else will I know that you’re with me in this, with me and your people? Are you traveling with us or not?…’ God said to Moses, `All right. Just as you say; this also I will do, for I know you well and you are special to me.”
What may appear as audacityGod views as authenticity. To be God’s friend, you must be honest to God, sharing your true feeling, not what you think you ought to feel or say.
2. Bitterness is the greatest barrier to friendship with God.
Bitterness is the greatest barrier to friendship with God: Why would I want to be God’s friend if he allowed this?
The antidote, of course, is to realize that God always acts in your best interest, even when it is painful and you don’t understand it.
It’s encouraging to know that all of God’s closest friends Moses, David, Abraham, Job, and others-had bouts with doubt. But instead of masking their misgivings with pious cliches, they candidly voiced them openly and publicly. Expressing doubt is sometimes the first step toward the next level of intimacy with God.
3. I must choose to obey God in faith.
Every time you trust God’s wisdom and do whatever he says, even when you don’t understand it, you deepen your friendship with God. 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.”
We obey God, not out of duty or fear or compulsion, but because we love him and trust that he
4. I must choose to value what God values.
This is what friends do-they care about what is important to the other person. The more you become God’s friend, the more you will care about the things he cares about, grieve over the things he grieves over, and rejoice over the things that bring pleasure to him.
Paul is the best example of this. God’s agenda was his agenda, and God’s passion was his: “The thing that has me so upset is that I care about you so much-this is the passion of God burning inside me!” David felt the same way: “Passion for your house burns within me, so those who insult you are also insulting me.
What does God care about most? The redemption of his people. He wants all his lost children found! That’s 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 when his children share that news with others. To be a friend of God, you must care about all the people around you whom God cares about. Friends of God tell their friends about God.
5. I must desire friendship with God more than anything else.
The Psalms are filled with examples of this desire. David passionately desired to know God above all else; he used words like longing, yearning, thirsting, hungering. He craved God. He said, “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 perfection and glory.”In another psalm he said, “Your love means more than life to me.’
Conclusion
There is nothing-absolutely nothing-more important than developing a friendship with God. It’s a relationship that will last forever. Paul told Timothy, “Some of these people have missed the most important thing in life-they don’t know God.’
Have you been missing out on the most important thing in life? You can do something about it starting now. Remember, it’s your choice. You are as close to God as you choose to be.
