Becoming a Friend of God |
Abraham was called a friend of God,
Christ called His disciples friends -
Luke 12:4 "I say to you My
friends."
We are told He will be a friend.
"But there is a friend that
sticks closer than a brother." Prov. 18:24b
"You are my
friends if you do what I command." John 15:14
He calls us friends after
our salvation - "Friend your sins are
forgiven." Luke 5:20
He warns us against having friendship with
the wrong things -
"You
adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is
hostility towards God? Therefore who ever whishes to be a friend of the
worlds makes himself an enemy of God." James 4:4
If you're reading this it's because you want
to have a friendship with Christ I would hope; and that excites me, because that
is my desire too as well as God's. That's why He sent
His Son. So how practically do we live in this friendship and
maintain the relationship?
CONNECT-
There's a huge difference between knowing someone and knowing
about someone. I'm sure you know WHO Christ is. You may even know
some stuff about Him that you learned in Sunday school or from some
other Christian influence but do you have a relationship with
Him?
Is He your
Sunday morning tradition or your every morning repetition?
What I mean is does your relationship
consist of just Sunday morning praise and maybe Wednesday prayer
meeting, or are you every day saying "Lord what do you want me to do in
this situation?" or "Lord I wanna praise you because You are this
or because you did this." We have to
be "In the vine" as one version says - another says "Abide in Me".
So you want to live as a friend
of the Father? Get connected to Him through PRAYER and a good BIBLE
STUDY. Start with 5-10 minutes of prayer in the morning and reading through a
chapter of the bible (I suggest starting in one of the gospels) every
morning, then the more you do it you'll start desiring it. Even if you don't at
first don't worry about it. Just do it.
"Abide in Me and I in
you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the
vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me." John
15:4
"If you keep My commandments
you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father's commandments and
abide in His love." John 15:10
CONTINUE - This is probably the hardest part of anyone's Christian walk.
That's why Paul and so many others, like the author of Hebrews, had to encourage the believers to continue with Christ. There's no
magic prayer, no special water, no secret hand shake that gives you this
relationship. So how do we continue to continue in Christ and His loving,
protective friendship? OBEY. How do we obey? By FIXING OUR
THOUGHTS AND LIVES ON JESUS, the "Author and Finisher of our
faith."
When you or I REFUSE to
think lustful thoughts, prideful thoughts, gossip, return evil for evil,
dishonor a parents that deserves none of your respect but instead replace those thoughts with scripture and those
actions with Godly actions or Godly words; when you and I continue to "Lay
aside every sin that so easily entangles us," we are continuing. We are
abiding with our Savior as our friend.
"Let us lay aside every
encumbrance, and sin that so easily entangles us,
and let us run with
endurance the race that is
set before us.
Fixing our eyes on Jesus the
author and perfection of our faith."
Hebrews 12:1-2
COMMIT - In the Old testament it says"These
people draw near with their lips and honor me with their words but their
hearts are far from Me."
No one deserves our total and whole
hearted commitment more than our precious heavenly daddy, no one deserves a
place in our daily routine more than Jesus.
Ya'll He DESERVES our commitment our
conscious effort to be ONLY His.
Think of it like this, one day you get
married and your husband/wife says " I love you" but you knew that they
didn't honor you or love you in their heart. You knew that you were maybe number
six on their list of most important people. In fact, they had a couple other
people they liked to look at and think about more than you. How sick would it
make you feel to hear them say "Babe, I just love you!"
If you praise and worship God with your lips
but your heart never desires Him, you never have a point in you life where you
say, not what makes me feel good, look good, sound good, but
WHATEVER He wants WHATEVER He desires
WHATEVER makes Him look good. You need to do it now,
EVERYTHING about you needs to
be about HIM.
If you're not going to make a commitment
that is 100% to Christ don't bother committing at all. It's like the husband/wife that say's " I love you baby." but is
all wrapped up in their last lover. It would make you sick and it makes Christ
sick too, just to be used as fire insurance.
"I know your deeds you are neither hot
nor cold; I wish you were either hot or cold." Revelations
3:15
He demands our Whole lives, thoughts,
actions, words, time. Give it to Him.
Commit your WAYS
"Commit your way to the
LORD, trust also in Him."
Psalm 37:5
Commit your
WORKS
"Commit your works to the
LORD, and your thoughts will be established."
Proverbs
16:3
Commit your SUFFERING
when people start to
cause you to suffer because of
your commitment... and they will!
"Therefore let those who suffer
according to the will of God commit their soul to Him in doing good, as
to a faithful Creator."
1 Peter 4:19
One of my biggest desires is to have
an intimate friendship with Jesus Christ and the joy that it brings.
Have you ever met a Christian who just glows with joy and love, and nothing
seems to be able to break or defeat their joy or over-use and destroy their
love? Their kinda like the energizer bunny that just keeps going, and going, and
going. I want that friendship so I like Paul can say;
"We have been surrounded and battered by
troubles, but we're not demoralized; we're not sure what to do, but we know that
God knows what to do; we've been spiritually terrorized, but God hasn't left our
side; we've been thrown down but not broken."
2 Corinthians 4:8-9
Our friendship with Christ is going
to take work and daily choices, just like every other friendship only
this friendship will be SO SO much more rewarding as we grow in it with our
Heavenly Friend. So
CONNECT to Christ through His word and
prayer.
CONTINUE in Christ by focusing on Him and daily
laying aside sins that entangle us and choke off our friendship with Christ.
COMMIT EVERYTHING ONLY to
Christ.
CONSIDER the Lives of those in
Hebrews chapter 12
"Do you see what this means -
all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It
means we'd better get on with it. Strip down, start running, and never quit! No
extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began
and finished this race we're in. Study how He did it.
because He never lost sight of
where He was headed - that exhilarating finish in and with God - He could put up
with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now He's there, in the
place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your
faith, go over that story again, item by item that long litany of hostility He
plowed through That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!
Hebrews 12:1-4
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