The Purpose Driven Life(26)
It’s encouraging to know that all of God’s closest friends—Moses, David, Abraham, Job, and others—had bouts with doubt. But instead of masking their misgivings with pious clichés, they candidly voiced them openly and publicly. Expressing doubt is sometimes the first step toward the next level of intimacy with God.
I must choose to obey God in faith. Every time you trust God’s wisdom and do whatever he says, even when you don’t understand it, you deepen your friendship with God. We don’t normally think of obedience as a characteristic of friendship; that’s reserved for relationships with a parent or the boss or a superior officer, not a friend. However, Jesus made it clear that obedience is a condition of intimacy with God. He said, “You are my friends if you do what I command.”7
In the last chapter I pointed out that the word Jesus used when he called us “friends” could refer to the “friends of the king” in a royal court. While these close companions had special 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. He is our loving leader, and we follow him.
DAY TWELVE: DEVELOPING YOUR FRIENDSHIP WITH GOD
We obey God, not out of duty or fear or compulsion, but because we love him and trust that he knows what is best for us. We want to follow Christ out of gratitude for all he has done for us, and the closer we follow him, the deeper our friendship becomes.
Unbelievers often think Christians obey out of obligation or guilt or fear of punishment, but the opposite is true. Because we have been forgiven and set free, we obey out of love—and our obedience brings great joy! 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!”8
Notice that Jesus expects us to do only what he did with the Father. His relationship with his Father is the model for our friendship with him. Jesus did whatever the Father asked him to do—out of love.
True friendship isn’t passive; it acts. When Jesus asks us to love others, help the needy, share our resources, keep our lives clean, offer forgiveness, and bring others to him, love motivates us to obey immediately.
We are often challenged to do “great things” for God. Actually, God is more pleased when we do small things for him out of loving obedience. 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 every day. Even through such simple acts as telling the truth, being kind, and encouraging others, we bring a smile to God’s face. God treasures simple acts of obedience more than our prayers, praise, or offerings. The Bible tells us, “What pleases the LORD more: burnt offerings and sacrifices or obedience to his voice? It is better to obey than to sacrifice.”9
Jesus began his public ministry at age thirty by being baptized by John. At that event God spoke from heaven: “This is my beloved Son, and I am fully pleased with him.”10 What had Jesus been doing for thirty years that gave God so much pleasure? The Bible says nothing about those hidden years except for a single phrase in Luke 2:51: “He went back to Nazareth with them, and lived obediently with them” (Msg). Thirty years of pleasing God were summed up in two words: “lived obediently”!
I must choose to value what God values. This is what friends do—they care about what is important to the other person. The more you become God’s friend, the more you will care about the things he cares about, grieve over the things he grieves over, and rejoice over the things that bring pleasure to him.
Paul is the best example of this. God’s agenda was his agenda, and God’s passion was his: “The thing that has me so upset is that I care about you so much—this is the passion of God burning inside me!”11 David felt the same way: “Passion for your house burns within me, so those who insult you are also insulting me.”12
The more you become God’s friend, the more you will care about the things he cares about.
What does God care about most? The redemption of his people. He wants all his lost children found! That’s the whole reason Jesus came to earth. The dearest thing to the heart of God is the death of his 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. David passionately desired to know God above all else; he used words like longing, yearning, thirsting, hungering. He craved God. He said, “The thing I seek most of all is the privilege of meditating in his Temple, living in his presence every day of my life, delighting in his incomparable perfections and glory.”13 In another psalm he said, “Your love means more than life to me.”14