Friendship With God

Text: Proverbs 18:24; John 15:13; James 4:8

Make no mistake about it, God wants to be your friend. Sad to say, there are not too many people who have this type of relationship with God but it’s available to all of us. To be friends with God one must first understand what friendship is.

Proverbs 18:24 says, “A man who has friends must himself be friendly, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” The Living Bible says, “There are friends who pretend to be friends…” There are two different types of friends. There are “pretenders” and there are those “who stick closer than a brother.”

Most of the people we call friends are not friends at all. They’ll talk to you, laugh with you, work with you, and play with you. They appear to be friends with everybody but the Amplified Bible says, “A person who is a friend to everybody in the world is a bad friend.” They are there during the good times but are nowhere to be found when things get rough.

There is, however, a kind of friend who will stick by you through any problem, circumstance, and trial. They’re there for you during times of sickness, financial woes, marital problems, and any other type of need. David and Jonathan had a friendship like this. They laid their lives down for one another and their relationship went far beyond the bonds of blood kinship. This is the type of relationship God wants to have with you.

There are certain kinds of friendships that you can enter into and be involved in that when you get into a bad situation you’d rather get hold of your friend than your own brother or sister. This is the kind of friend that God would like to be with you, the kind of friend that won’t run away during times of trouble.

God wants to enter into this type of relationship with you and He wants you to enter into this type of relationship with Him. We need this “stick closer than a brother” attitude with our spouse, other believers, and especially with God. This type of relationship with God goes beyond the normal father/son relationship. It goes way beyond that. Yes, it encompasses that relationship but it encircles more than that.

You must, however, let God be your friend. If you don’t want this type of relationship with God He won’t force Himself off on you. When Jesus set free the mad man of Gadera the people asked Jesus to leave and go away from them. They didn't want to be friends with Him. So what did Jesus do? He left. He didn't argue with them and He didn't force Himself on them. Remember, God won’t force Himself on anybody.

Why did the people of Gadera (Mark 5) tell Jesus to leave their presence? Why did they do this? People come against what they don’t understand. Even today people reject Jesus and don’t accept Him with opened arms because they don’t understand Him. They think He’s standing over them with a baseball bat ready to clobber them on the head if they trip up and fail. They don’t understand that God is a loving God, that He is kind and merciful. The problem in marriages and most other relationships is some form of misunderstanding.

What people don’t understand, they will come against. Too many people don’t understand God and what He is like, who He is, and how He does things. Because of their lack of knowledge and understanding they’re against having a close relationship with Him. It takes time and effort to understand God and what He wants to do in your life. Also, most people don’t want to make the commitment to do this. The good news is that when you understand that God wants to become your friend then you won’t have any problem becoming His.

We read in Exodus 33:11a, “So the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to a friend.” A friend is a person you can talk to about anything and the Lord talked to Moses as a friend, face to face. Why did God do this with Moses? Because of the desire in the heart of Moses to know Him. Vs. 13 says, “Now therefore, I pray, if I have found grace in Your sight, show me Your way, that I may know You and that I may find grace in Your sight.”

Moses wanted to be friends with God. He wanted to know God in a personal way. When he said, “Show me Your way” he was saying he wanted to know God better and have an intimate knowledge of who He is. He wanted to know God! How did God respond to his request? “Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘I will also do this thing that you have spoken; for you have found grace in My sight, and I know you by name.’” The more you know God and understand Him the more His grace will be poured out into your life. The question to be asked is this: Does God know you by name? Do you know Him by name?

------ To be continued ------

*** Written by Randall Brewer ***

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