A Friend of God

 

Are you and God friends? Today I want us to go through what it means to be a friend of God. There are several people in the Bible who God considered friends; Abraham, David and Moses are the most popular, let’s not forget Enoch, even though the Bible does not say much about him.

To be friends with someone, you have to be able to walk together. You need to have things in common. We have a lot of friends, people we chat with and spend time with. The difference between these friendships and friendship with God is that a proper friendship with God is never casual. It is intense, mostly because of what God requires and expects of you if you are to be His friend.

God will not play second fiddle to anyone. If He is to be your friend, He has to be number 1 in your life. He is a jealous God, so much that He will not allow you to trust anyone more than you trust Him. There are times we fall out with close friends, and we blame the enemy for coming between us and that friend; we must also consider that God can in fact provoke someone’s anger against you, to destroy that friendship If He sees that you have started valuing that friendship more than you value the one you have with Him.

A.W Tozer said ‘I have spent more time in conversation with God, than I have with men’

God wants to be the first person we run to when we want to talk. Often times, when something happens to us, when we have a strange situation, we run to friends, parents, pastors, prophets. We run to everyone except the one person who actually has the power to fix our situation. We need to get to a place where we know God so well, that we can speak to Him and lose track of time because you were conversing with a friend. Bear in mind, that God will never repeat what you tell Him to other people. He won’t gossip about you, what you say to Him stays between you and Him. If that doesn’t make you want to talk to God first, I’m not sure what it will take.

God requires us to resist entertaining all doubts of Him, if we are to be His friends. We must believe His word and hold on to it. We must trust His heart, even when we can’t see His hand in our situation. We must constantly be aware that we are loved and that God wants to hear from us. The Bible tells us to ‘pray without ceasing’. Some people have taken this to mean that they must quit their jobs and spend their days in prayer. This entire instruction means, is that we must be aware of God’s presence all the time. If we keep His presence in mind, we can actually talk to Him silently, in our mind and heart, even as we go about running our daily errands. You can sit in traffic and talk to God instead of listening to music. You can talk to God as you cook, as you take a shower. Being aware of and acknowledging His presence will not only lead to deeper intimacy with Him, but will also help you resist sin. Your mind will be concentrated on things above. Your spirit will become strong enough to resist any temptations the enemy tries to seduce you with.

 I cannot stress enough the importance of obedience if we are to be Gods friend. If you look through the Bible and read the stories of people who did great things with and for God, you will find that the one thing they had in common, was obedience. Abraham, Moses, David, Elijah to name a few. All these people were able to do great things because they were receptive to Gods word. They obeyed every instruction that came from Him. To them, Gods word was the law and there was no compromising about it. They obeyed promptly and with every ounce of joy they could master. They obeyed their heavenly father because they knew and trusted Him.

I read a story the other day about a blind 4 year old girl. The building she lived in with her parents was on fire and she was standing by the window. He dad had gone out to the store and there were firemen at the bottom telling her to jump. They told her they had placed a soft place for her to land when she jumped; but the little girl stood by the window and would not move. Then her dad arrived at the scene, saw his daughter standing by the window. He told her to jump and without hesitating, the little girl jumped. She was blind; she could not see how far she was from the bottom or what kind of soft landing had been prepared for her. She jumped only when she heard her fathers’ voice. She recognized his voice, she trusted his instruction, she knew this was the man who loved her and would not tell her to jump to her death. Oh how much easier our lives would be if we knew God so well, that we recognized His voice, His actions and His hand in our lives. If we had a friendship with God so intimate that we could trust His instructions regardless of what is happening around us, we would find Christianity a whole lot easier.

Finally, the one other thing God requires of us is that we fear Him. We cannot be friends with God while living like someone who has never heard of God and has no respect or fear of Him. We are told to be in the world but not of the world. We cannot do what everyone else does, not if we want to be friends with God. We need to maintain a clean heart and clear conscience because we know how much these things mean to God. Note that every effort you make towards moving to God, He notices and appreciates. Every time you take the time to speak to Him, He notices. 

If we can get to that point where we cannot go a day without talking to God, our spiritual journey will become a lot more beneficial for us and others around us will notice the difference in our character and attitude. The more time you spend with God, talking to Him, reading His word, thinking of Him, the more you begin to reflect His character. What you feed will grow. If we feed our spiritual lives, we will grow and mature as Christians. In the Bible God promised that if we go near to Him, He will draw near to us. If we start today, making that effort to draw closer to God; even if we start with a 2 minute prayer, every day for 30 days, I can guarantee you that there will be a change in you. Every step you take towards Him, He takes one towards you.

I should warn you though, if you have decided to pursue this course, you will lose your taste for certain things you have enjoyed in the past. You will no longer enjoy certain music, certain venues; even certain friends will no longer fit in with your new lifestyle. You will notice that you are on your way to becoming a whole new person. That person you are becoming will be the person God created you to be and he/she will be a much better version of your old self.

Try it and see.

God Allows Vs God Orchestrates

 

Today I want to go through and explain the differences between what God allows and what God orchestrates. It was during a discussion with a close friend that I realized very few people know or even care about the difference between the 2 circumstances. I will tell you straight up, that the difference is huge and it matters. 

If you’re dating someone, you want to marry them and you go to God and say ‘Lord, I want to marry this person. Please bless our union’… then a few months later, you marry that person. God has allowed it.

If you looking for a life partner and you go to God and say ‘Lord, I want to get married, and I’m leaving my love life in your hands, please send me the right man/woman’… then a few weeks/months later, you happen to meet Mr/Mrs Right in a meeting or a shop; it would be safe to say God has orchestrated it.

Because God loves us and has given us free will, there are a lot of things in our lives that He will allow, even if those things were not His first choice for us. He will allow you to quit your job and start a business, even if He knew you were going to get promoted soon. He will allow you to marry the man/woman of your choice, even if He had someone better in mind for you. This is usually the case when we don’t consult God before we make decisions. It is generally in our nature to want full control of every area of our lives, so we make decisions and ask God to bless our choices. This is the life of a person who is yet to come to a place of total surrender to God.

When you have grown spiritually and you can sincerely say ‘God, let you will be done and not mine’, then you have surrendered. It is at this point that God can begin to orchestrate things in your life. He can begin to line things up so you find your purpose, He can begin to move things around so you meet the man/woman He wants you to be with. 

God is not obligated to sustain anything that He did not orchestrate. See, when God has orchestrated it, and you are certain, you can literally trace His hand in your situation and know that God did it, you can expect Him to sustain it, and you can actually hold Him accountable for it. After all, it was His doing.

Let me give you some Bible examples to further illustrate my point.

When it was time for Isaac, Abraham's' promised son, to find a wife, Abraham sent one of his servants to go back to his country and find a wife for the young man. 

The servant was on a mission to find a wife, and when he got there, he said a quick prayer. He said ‘O Lord God of my master Abraham, please give me success this day, and show kindness to my master Abraham. Behold, here I stand by the well of water, and the daughters of the men of the city are coming out to draw water. Now let it be that the young woman to whom I say ‘Please let down your pitcher that I may drink’ and she says ‘ Drink and I will also give your camels a drink’- let her be the one You have appointed for Your servant Isaac’ .

This story can be found in Genesis chapter 24.

See, this servant put the whole situation in Gods’ hands from the get-go. He allowed God to make the choice and show him what to do.  He allowed God to orchestrate the whole thing.

What happens next?

Before he had finished speaking, Rebekah who was one of Abrahams’ relatives came out with her pitcher on her shoulders. The Bible says she was very beautiful to behold and the servant ran to meet her and asked her if he could have a drink of water from her pitcher, and she says

‘Drink, my lord’ and when he finished drinking, she says ‘I will draw water for your camels also until they have finished drinking’

Imagine that. This beautiful young lady came over and said the exact words the servant had prayed for. I would say it was a coincidence but I know better.

This is what happens when God orchestrates. He is in every part of it. He works behind the scenes to make sure it will happen, even if the odds of it happening are slim. 

In Genesis 26, there was a famine in the land that Isaac was living in and in those days, whenever there was a famine, people would go to Egypt and settle there until the famine was over. In verse2, God appeared to Isaac and said ‘do not go down to Egypt; live in the land of which I shall tell you. Dwell in this land and I will be with you and bless you…’

Isaac stayed where God told him to stay, sowed in that land and he reaped in the same year a hundred fold. Isaac was guaranteed success because God had initiated and orchestrated his stay in that land.

God either orchestrates something to happen or allows it to happen. It is either one of those two things.

What God initiates, He orchestrates and He sustains.  We are always a lot safer in situations that God has orchestrated; always safer in within Gods will. A.W Tozer said ‘Outside the will of God, there is nothing I want; inside the will of God, there is nothing I fear’.

Can Gods Mind Be Changed...?

 

Is it possible to change Gods mind? A lot of people point to the story of King Hezekiah, who was sick and God sent a prophet to tell him that he would die. Hezekiah then prayed and pleaded with God and God then said Hezekiah could have 15 more years.

Now… let me break this down, so we can answer the question at hand

.

Hezekiah was a direct descendant of King David. In 1^st Kings 9 vs. 5, God is talking to King Solomon and He says ‘I will establish the throne of your kingdom over Israel forever, as I promised David your father, saying ‘you shall not fail to have a man on the throne of Israel’

God had promised David, that he would always have a man on the throne. At the time that Hezekiah was told he would not recover from his sickness, he did not have a child. Hezekiah’s son Manasseh was born 3 years after God extended Hezekiah’s life.

 If Hezekiah had died at the time the threat of death came, the promise God made to David would have been broken and we all know how God keeps His promises. In fact, God did not give Hezekiah an extra 20 years, or an extra 7 years. He gave Hezekiah just enough time to have a son and raise him to an age where he could reign. Hezekiah’s son became king when he was 12. Note that God did not have to think about His response to Hezekiah’s prayer. It was already in His mind, in His plan to extend Hezekiah’s life by 15 years. I’ve always thought that God just wanted Hezekiah to humble himself and He knew a death threat would lead to that outcome.

So…Did Hezekiah change Gods mind?

 

Another example given was when God revealed to Abraham that He planned to burn Sodom and Gomorrah to the ground and Abraham began to negotiate with God. Genesis 18 vs.16 is where this story begins. Abraham bargains with God and in the end, God tells Abraham that if He finds 10 righteous people in Sodom, He will not burn Sodom down. I’ve heard people say that this story shows that God can be negotiated with in order to change His mind. 

What happens after Abraham’s negotiation? 2 angels went to Sodom and stayed with Lot (Abraham’s nephew). When they had eaten, a crowd of people came to Lots house trying to break the door down so they could ‘know the angels carnally’. After this, the angels tell Lot and his family to leave the city as it was about to be burnt to the ground.

Notice that the angels did not take the time to try and find 10 righteous people in Sodom as Abraham had negotiated with God. They went to one house and made their decision from the crowd that came to that house. There may have been righteous housewives at home with their children, to bring the number of righteous people to 10. We don’t know who else was out there. What we know, is that even after Abraham negotiated and asked God to save the city if He finds 10 righteous people, God still burnt the city to the ground.

Did Abraham change Gods mind?

Final example (I promise) Moses. The children of Israel created a Gold calf for themselves to worship since Moses had been gone way too long. Genesis chapter 32 tells this story. Moses is up the mountain spending time with God and he is informed (by God) that the people have built a gold calf and are worshipping it. God then asks Moses to let Him be so His ‘anger can burn hot against them and they may be consumed’. God wanted to wipe out all of them. Moses pleaded with God and asked God to spare them since He had made a promise to Abraham about these people. God then relented from the harm which He said He would do to His people. Moses changed Gods mind…right?

If you read further into the story of the children of Israel, you’ll find that the entire generation of Israelites who had created the gold calf died before they reached the Promised Land. God still wiped them out, He just relented at that time (because of the promise He made to Abraham) and kept them around long enough to produce the next generation of Israelites, who would then go on to the Promised Land. 

Did Moses change Gods mind?

Now, I’m not trying to say God is stubborn and unreasonable. He is not. BUT… His purposes do not change. Based on existing relationship and our actions, we might be able to get God to change His method in a particular situation or His timing on a particular action, but ultimately, Gods purpose, His will, is what will prevail. 

Someone once told me that God told Abraham about Sodom and Gomorrah because He wanted Abraham’s permission to do what He planned. I must say, as nice as this idea is. The idea that God will actually seek our permission before He does something, is well…not true. He does not need anyone’s permission. If anything, God told Abraham because they were friends. God does confide in those He considers friends, but He does not seek permission from man to do anything. He is all knowing, all seeing. Our views are limited; we don’t know anything beyond what we perceive to be true; why would God seek our permission?  God does not seek permission; He simply confides in and builds relationships with His friends.

GENTLE REBUKE

 

A few weeks ago, a certain American pastor stood on a pulpit and uttered the harshest rebuke to gay people. There were various reactions from people about her method of delivery and you all know I like to keep people with different opinions around me. Some hailed her for speaking the truth with courage, while others said that harsh rebuke could not have come from God.

We have this idea that Gods rebuke is always gentle and soothing. God cannot possibly shout and scream at a person. Apparently we have forgotten that time when Jesus walked into the temple, whipped people and overturned tables.

In Acts 12 vs 23, King Herod was struck by an angel of the Lord because He did not give glory to God.

(for those who think God somehow changed His personality and mellowed out in the new testament, this happened in the new testament)

Never mind the various times the children of Israel were rebuked by God in the harshest manner you can possibly imagine. We choose to believe that Gods rebuke will always come with a comforting hug and maybe some candy.

In Job 5:17 he says: Behold, happy is the man whom God corrects; Therefore do not despise the chastening of the Almighty. For He bruises, but He binds up;

HE BRUISES, but He binds up. 

Don’t get me wrong here; I’m not defending the pastor mentioned above for what she said and how she said it. I used her as an example because the reactions from fellow Christians around the world were very intriguing. I saw the two types of Christians out there. Those who read the Bible and embrace ALL of Gods character as it is, and those who read the Bible and only embrace the parts of God that make them feel warm and fuzzy inside.

There is no one way for God to rebuke a person. Especially one in a leadership position. To whom much is given, much is required. When God gives you a title, a position, a territory, He also expects a lot more from you. He expects you to set an example, as someone who is representing God. If you fail in that aspect, His rebuke might not be so kind and gentle.