Developing Your Friendship with God ~ Day 12

Proverbs 3:32

"Draw close to God, and God will draw close to you" (James 4:8).

We are as close to God as we choose to be. Our friendship with God takes desire, time, and energy. If we want to be close to God, we must first learn to be honest with Him to include Him; to include Him in our lives. Like any other friendship, our friendship with God has to be honest and trusting.

We must choose to be honest with God. This is the first building block of an intimate relationship with God. God doesn't expect us to be perfect, but he needs honesty from us. In the Old Testament, God's friends often were honest to the point of complaining. This didn't seem to bother God, just as long as they were honest.

God even negotiated with Abraham over what it would take to spare the city of Sodom that He had chosen to destroy. In the end, God save 40 righteous people, taking Abraham's challenge to the heart.  God also listened to several challenges from David, Jeremiah, and Job. In fact, God defended Job to his friends, saying that Job was honest with Him (Job 42:7-8).

 In Exodus 33:12 - 17, God and Moses have a heart to heart about Moses leading the Israelites to the Promised Land. In this passage, we can see that Moses and God are speaking with equal candor. In the end, God acquiesces to Moses, telling him that he is special. God wants that kind of honesty from us.

Genuine friendship is built on honesty and trust. Just as we are honest with our brothers and sisters, we need to be respectfully honest with God. Sometimes we feel disappointed, even that maybe God isn't listening to us. This could not be further from the truth. The longer we have a friendship with God, the more we realize that God uses everything for the good (Romans 8:28). God always acts in our best interests. Sometimes the actions are painful, but we always must remember Romans 8:28. Then we can turn to God, and have a nice heart-to-heart with our Father. (Consider Job 7:17-21).

The book of Psalms is included in the Bible to help us in knowing how to express our emotions to God. Rick Warren calls it a worship manual. It is full of every emotion known to man. It teaches us how God wants us to worship Him. We can pray like David, "I pour out my complaints before Him and tell Him all my troubles. For I am overwhelmed" (Psalm 142:2–3a). As we see, David, as well as others, did not have any problem with communicating their emotions with God. In fact, expressing these emotions is the first step toward the next level of intimacy with God.

We must choose to obey God in faith. Every time we trust what God tells us to do by obeying it, we deepen our relationship with Him. As Jesus then the Bible, "You are my friends if you do what I command" (John 15:14). We obey God because we love Him and trust that He knows what is best for us. We need to follow Chris;, and the closer we follow Him, the deeper our friendship is with Him. (John 15:9 – 11)

God may ask us to do things, both great and small. He delights when we obey all things. When we obey, it is an act of worship (1 Samuel 15:22).

We must choose to value what God values. Just as with our brothers and sisters, we must learn to care about what God cares about; learn what is important to God, and only then can we begin to be real friends with God. When we do this, we will find ourselves grieving when God grieves, and rejoicing when He rejoices. An example of this is David, in Psalms 69:9.

The thing that God cares about the most is the redemption of His people. With this in mind, what should we care about the most? How should we respond?

We must desire friendship with God more than anything else. If we want to find examples of desiring friendship with God in the Bible, we need only to go to Psalm. In Psalm 27:4, David prayed, "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." In another Psalm he said, "Your love means more than life to me" (Psalm 63:3).

An intimate relationship with God is something that we must intentionally seek constantly. Rick Warren asks us if it's worth giving up other things, as Paul did. It was Paul's passion to know Him (Philippians 3:10). We need to pray to God to allow us to know Him intimately. (Jeremiah 29:13)

Point to Ponder:

I'm as close to God as I choose to be

Verse to Remember:

James 4:8 a

Question to Consider:

What practical choices will I make today in order to grow closer to God?