Your Friend, God: Week 1

Written By Abby Sholar

  • 1) If we don’t think God is really our friend, we walk through this life in senseless fear, insecurity, anger, and slavery to thoughts and actions. Believing and embracing the friendship of God is a key to coming alive and also learning to thrive in a world of darkness, hopelessness, and trouble.

  • 2) If we do think of God as our friend, but we don’t understand the nature of this friendship and think it just like our other friends, we will become constantly disappointed and disillusioned from unmet expectations. 

  • James 2:23 NLT: And so it happened just as the Scriptures say: “Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith.” He was even called the friend of God.

  • What made Abraham God’s friend? He believed God’s promises, which is not to say he never doubted. Only that he kept returning to belief, even after repeated failures.

  • Friendship with God is initiated by God, not by us.

  • John 15:16 NLT: You didn’t choose me. I chose you.

  • Exodus 33:19 NLT: For I will show mercy to anyone I choose, and I will show compassion to anyone I choose.

  • Friendship with God is one-sided, just not in the way we think.

  • Proverbs 27:6 AMP: Faithful are the wounds of a friend [who corrects out of love and concern…

  • Friendship with God is about bringing us into the confidence of the higher purposes of an eternal covenant.

  • Psalm 25:14 ESV: The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear him, and he makes known to them his covenant.

  • Genesis 18:17 AMP: The Lord said, “Shall I keep secret from Abraham [My friend and servant] what I am going to do,

  • Now, true love and lasting friendship require certain dispositions: those of our Lord, we know, are absolutely perfect; ours, vicious, sensual, and thankless; and you cannot therefore, bring yourselves to love Him as He loves you, because you have not the disposition to do so; and if you do not love Him, yet, seeing how much it concerns you to have His friendship, and how great is His love for you, rise above that pain you feel at being much with Him Who is so different from you. – Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582 A.D.)

Abby Sholar
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