God Wants You to be His Friend
God created you in His image so that so that He could have a personal relationship with you. God is seeking an intimate heart to heart relationship with you. There are some very good parents that have friendship with their children, while still being parents. God is your Father but He desires friendship with you also. (James 2:23 NKJV) And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” And he was called the friend of God.
A parent that you can trust as a friend is a refuge of security, someone you will go to without hesitation about any problem, or temptation. God desires that you let Him be that kind of friend to you. (Psalms 91:1-2 NKJV) He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High Shall abide under the shade of the Almighty. {2} I will say of the LORD, “He is my refuge and my fortress; My God, in Him I will trust.”
Jesus calls us His friends because He communicates with us. (John 15:12-17 NKJV) “This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. {13} “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. {14} “You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. {15} “No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. {16} “You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. {17} “These things I command you, that you love one another.
Our relationship with God is the most personal relationship we can ever have. God is a jealous God; we are not to let anyone or anything come between God and us. (1Timothy 2:5 NKJV) For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus. We are to be in Christ and Christ is in God, it is the Holy Spirit that unifies us together. God has given us His Holy Spirit to counsel, teach, and comfort us. Jesus said in (John 14:26 NIV) But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.
Anyone that exalts himself as a mediator between God and man, besides Jesus Christ, has the spirit of an antichrist, a false Christ. A cult is a religious organization that separates people from the true God and their relationship with Him. There are some cults that have doctrine very similar to Christianity but they have their own interpretation of the Bible that comes from a central figure or office. They interpret the Bible for the members and some have their own book that they use to judge what is true from the Holy Bible. These cults discourage people from reading the Bible on their own because when people get the truth they leave the cult.
John warned believers about this. (1 John 2:26-27 NKJV) These things I have written to you concerning those who try to deceive you. {27} But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him. The anointing is the Holy Spirit that teaches us.
Some churches keep a heavy hand on their members denying them the freedom that we have in Jesus Christ. Paul called them false Christians when they demanded that Titus be circumcised. (Galatians 2:3-5 NLT) And they did agree. They did not even demand that my companion Titus be circumcised, though he was a Gentile. {4} Even that question wouldn’t have come up except for some so-called Christians there–false ones, really–who came to spy on us and see our freedom in Christ Jesus. They wanted to force us, like slaves, to follow their Jewish regulations. {5} But we refused to listen to them for a single moment. We wanted to preserve the truth of the Good News for you.
Some churches care more about unimportant things and controlling and discouraging people then they do about loving God and loving their neighbor. If Jesus visited them He might say something similar to what He said to the religious rulers of his day. (Matthew 23:23-28 NLT) “How terrible it will be for you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are careful to tithe even the tiniest part of your income, but you ignore the important things of the law–justice, mercy, and faith. You should tithe, yes, but you should not leave undone the more important things. {24} Blind guides! You strain your water so you won’t accidentally swallow a gnat; then you swallow a camel! {25} “How terrible it will be for you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! You are so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are filthy–full of greed and self-indulgence! {26} Blind Pharisees! First wash the inside of the cup, and then the outside will become clean, too. {27} “How terrible it will be for you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs–beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with dead people’s bones and all sorts of impurity. {28} You try to look like upright people outwardly, but inside your hearts are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness.
Our relationship with God is a personal relationship. Do not let anyone or anything come between you and God. If you are not grounded in God’s Word, and you do not know the voice of the Holy Spirit in you, then you are vulnerable to bad advice or even false doctrine. God has given apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers for building you up in the faith of the Lord Jesus. They are there to encourage your relationship with God, and not to be a mediator between you and God. Everything they say and do should be pointing you to Jesus Christ and the Word. But we are to judge everything by the Word of God.
(Ephesians 4:11-16 NKJV) And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, {12} for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, {13} till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; {14} that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, {15} but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head; Christ; {16} from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.
God desires that you enter into the secret place of His presence where there is fullness of joy. (Psalms 16:11 NKJV) You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore. (Psalms 31:19-20 NKJV) Oh, how great is Your goodness, Which You have laid up for those who fear You, Which You have prepared for those who trust in You In the presence of the sons of men! {20} You shall hide them in the secret place of Your presence From the plots of man; You shall keep them secretly in a pavilion From the strife of tongues.