Day 12: “Developing Your Friendship with God”

I apologize to all of you all for being absent and not posting on my site for  a long time due to some circumstances i have had to face. With God all things are possible. Learn from even the negative situations in life and make it a blessed opportunity for your life.

Key Points:

• Like any other friendship, you must work at developing your friendship with God.
• It will not just happen by accident because it takes desire, time and energy.
• If you want a deeper connection with anyone you do things to make them see that, you try to be a part of their everyday lives, take them out on dates, call them through the night etc.
• Nothing should change with God, put in the same energy, and even more, to establish a strong undeniable relationship with the Lord, your God.

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
• Recently, i have stopped a potential relationship because of what i found out . There was a lot of dishonesty and even though i cared for the young lady, I am able to realize that i would rather not establish a relationship that has a “sand built” foundation. Honesty is the key to all successful relationships.
• If perfection was a requirement for friendship with God, we would never be able to be his friends as perfection is an unattainable state; Well, except you are Jesus Christ.
• 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 his frankness; in fact, he encouraged it. Be bold and understand that you can contact god by speaking to the winds not using any form of technology of face to face contact but be mindful that he is the Lord Almighty and be respectful and dignified to that.
• What may appear as audacity God views as authenticity.
• To be God’s friend, you must be honest to god, sharing your true feeling, not what you thing you ought to feel or say. That is being honest over formulating a story.
• The difference is that one is from your heart and the other is a formulation of words that make the next person feel better about things, aka being fake.
• Until we mature enough to understand that God uses everything for good in our lives, we harbor resentment toward God over our appearance, background, unanswered prayers, past hurts, and other things we would change if we were God.

I MUST CHOOSE TO OBEY GOD IN FAITH.

• He said, “You are my friends if you do what i command”. No one can say that he doesn’t hae this right.
• Jesus used the words, “friends of the king” in a royal court. While these close companions had several privileges, they were still subject to the king and had to obey his commands.
• We are friends with God, but we are not his equals.
• We obey God, not out of duty of fear of compulsion, but because we love him and trust that he knows what si best for us.
• We want to follow Christ out of gratitude or all that he has done and continues to do for us, and the closer we follow him, the closer our friendship becomes.
• Jesus said, “I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. When you obey me, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father and remain in his love. I have told you this so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow!”
• His relationship with his Father is the model of our friendship with him.
• The friendship isn’t passive, its acts. When Jesus, asks us to help the needy, love others, share our resources, keep our lives clean, offer forgiveness, and bring others to him, love motivates us to obey immediately.
• We are often challenges to do “great things” for God. Actually, God is more pleased when we do small things for him out of loving obedience because it shown that we involve him constantly not only when we meet a big problem that we cannot face ourselves. They may be unnoticed by others but God notices them and considers them acts of worship.
• Great opportunities may come once in a lifetime, but small opportunities surround us everyday so take advantage of those and please God always.

I MUST CHOOSE TO VALUE WHAT GOD VALUES:

• This is what true friends do, they care about what others view as important to their lives.
• Let God’s agenda be yours as well.
• What does God care about the most? The redemption of his people
• This is the whole reason Jesus came to this earth. He wants all of his lost children to be found.
• The dearest thing to the heart of God is the death of is 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.

I MUST DESIRE FRIENDSHIP WITH GOD MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE:

• The Psalms are filled with examples of this desire.
• You must long for, crave, yearn, and hunger for God’s friendship.
• 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”.
• God, who is all-powerful, let Jacob win because he saw the desire in his heart. Wrestling in this sense means personal contact and imagine if you have this type of contact with your creator. Will you let him God?
• He loves it when you are passionate about his love.
• The real truth is that, you are as close to God as you choose to be.
• Intimate friendship with God is a choice not an accident.
• Do you really want it?,  Are you willing to live by his word and ignore all that is bad?, Ask yourself all this but more importantly?, Do you think it is worth it?
• You may have been passionate about him in the past but you have lost the desire. If you have just been going through the motions spiritually, don’t be surprised when God allows pain in your life.
• Not because he allows bad in your life because he doesn’t but because pain is the fuel of passion, it energizes us with an intensity to change what we don’t normally possess.
• Your problems are not punishment, they are a wake up call from a loving God. God is not mad at you; he’s mad about you, and he will do whatever it takes to bring you back into fellowship with him.

YOUR MOST IMPORTANT RELATIONSHIP:

There is nothing, absolutely nothing more important than developing a friendship with God. It is a relationship that will last forever. Remember it is your choice. You are as close to God as you choose to be.

QUESTION TO CONSIDER:

• What practical choices will I make today in order to grow closer to God?
• Draw close to God and God will draw close to you – James 4:8