THE SCENARIO FiloS wants to walk with Jehovah God, as His friend, like unto Abraham, and Moses. FiloS wants to honor God in this way. FiloS wants to be someone who defends God’s honor by example, in word, and deed, walking in God’s ways, sacrificially obedient to Him. FiloS wants to be someone whom God can trust, someone whom God can depend on; someone who won’t cheat God or lie to Him; someone who loves God and delights in being God’s friend, which is to say, someone who delights in all the above. Jehovah God is FiloS’ All-in-All, and nothing means more to FiloS than Jehovah God’s friendship.
In the outworking of this scenario please consider the following:
SENSITIVITY POINTS UNDER CONSIDERATION
1 The friendship walk, walking in God’s ways.
2. God’s friend, like unto Abraham, and Moses, and Christ’s followers.
3. God’s sacrificially obedient friend.
6. God’s friend loves God and delights in Him and in His friends.
7. Christ bless you Christian friends.
1. Walking in God’s ways. What are His ways? Christ taught us what God’s ways are. That is singularly why we have even an inkling as to what God’s ways are (an otherwise impossible understanding for humankind of limited intelligence and knowledge and wisdom…and holiness-cognizance). The God-man Jesus Christ taught us what they are. That is how and why we know precisely, in fact, what they are. And Jesus but reiterated what He spoke through his prophets and servants of old. That is, God has been teaching us His ways for quite a long time, redundantly. Why? The answer is gift-wrapped up in friendship—God welcomes many friends, but His friends must walk in His ways. A lot of folks don’t like these ways of His (unfriendly sorts, not His friends). Of course, these are the folks that do not like Jesus Christ, who stands in place of God’s ways. But then again, a lot of folks do like these ways of His (friendly sorts, His friends). One can hardly be His friend and at the same time reject His ways. Jesus put it like this:
You are my friends if you do what I command you. (John 15:14)
And what is Jesus’ command? We shall touch on that just next. God’s ways are substantive and necessarily elegant. Said in the negative, they are not hollow nor are they impractically complex. And they are beautiful and pleasing. Piercing, pleasing, practicality, married if you will to aesthetics. God does things in that manner, it is His signature. When you see the former (this marriage), you are looking at the Latter (even Jehovah God). But less adjectivally now, what specifically are they, these ways of His? What did Jesus teach us here? God’s ways are summarized by His great commandment—all the good details unfold from there. Paraphrasing:
‘…ye shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind, and ye shall love your brethren, your neighbor as it were, your fellow human being, even as you love yourself…’ (Matthew 22:35-40, John 13:34-35). Closely compare Jesus’ command here in John to the great commandment in Matthew; notice how consistent Jesus’ relatively newer command is with that ancient great commandment which He no doubt formulated in solidarity with the Godhead Jehovah (cf. Deuteronomy 10:12, Leviticus 19:18). At the tip of the vastly-angled wedge we call “Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount” sits this great commandment, and all the good details concerning the tip dwell inside that vast wedge. Importantly, God’s friends dwell inside there too (Matthew 5-7, “The Beatitudes”, cf. “Be Holy”). Dwelling there begins with a sensitive friendship-decision.
2. We have in Abraham and Moses, models of what our God values in His friends—foremost, faith in Himself. Moses would not move unless God was going with him (Exodus 33:11-15-what a terrific set of verses). Not only would Moses not move without God by his side, he knew that God would in fact be by his side. Faith times two. It is one thing to have faith in God, it is quite another to know that God will bless His faithful. Faith is always qualified like that. Dearest Christian reader, you have no doubt taken examinations in your life. Please notice that God examines our faith. He built the exam right into the act.
And Abraham of course is the Old Testament “man of faith.” The same is his “friendship mantle” (James 2:23). And that friendship became the basis for myriad friendships with God through faith in Jesus Christ. Jehovah God is very deliberate, He is consistent, He establishes patterns and protocols, and patiently works them out across the generations until His goals are met[1]. The friendship pattern and protocol, of faith in Jehovah God, is nothing new to this modern era. God valued faith in Himself in days past and rewarded the same (Genesis 22:18-the Promise to faithful Abraham, fulfilled in Jesus Christ), and today He still values this same faith in Himself, now through Jesus Christ, and as before, He greatly blesses it. Exactly how? With Himself, His friendship, on into eternity—that, is blessed Salvation (Romans 1:16-17, cf. Habakkuk 2:4, not least Galatians 3:11, et al., “A Letter of Invitation”). Now let us hear Jesus, the object of our faith and friendship post-Cross:
You are My friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you. (John 15:14-15, “He Who Sent Me”) And again:
This I command you, that you love one another. (John 15:17) Straight from the lips of Father God through our Savior Jesus here.
These are faith “exams,” friendship qualifiers according to Jesus. So, we must reason, if God values faith in Himself by His friends foremost, then obedience to His commands is but a hair’s-breadth removed. Obedience attends faith and thus once-removed it attends friendship is maybe better said (again, Habakkuk 2:4). More in the next point.
3. God’s sacrificially obedient friend. Here is Jesus Christ (Zechariah 13:7, Hebrews 5:8). And since that is the case, no less must God’s friends be sacrificially obedient. But is that humanly possible? No, not to the extent that Jesus was sacrificially obedient. We shall try, but we will fail to meet God’s standards. Maybe, sometimes we will somewhat do it, but probably, most of the time, we will not get it done. So, what to do? After all, we want to be God’s friends, right? Here is where we need an intercessor, an advocate, a vicariously obedient friend who can ably stand in our place and plead our (friendship) case before God. There is just no other way to meet God’s friendship requirements here. Precisely Jesus is that able Intercessor, Advocate, and Vicariously Obedient Friend we seek (Hebrews 7:24-25, 9:24, 1John 2:1). But we prayerfully do the best we humanly can all along the way, of course. Christ condescended to die so that some of us might be forever friends of God—that is the overarching theme of Salvation. It is important to remember that lest one despair of that blessedness per one’s failures before God. God desires our friendship and has taken care to make it possible (again, “A Letter of Invitation” to you dearest reader if you have not already accepted God’s invitation to be His eternal friend; confess your sins before God and repent of them, and ask Jesus to plead your friendship case before God—He will do it for you; then follow Him wherever He leads you; from that moment forward you shall be blessed).
4. God’s friends are trustworthy. Dependable, reliable, responsible is meant. A friend is someone God can depend on to promote primarily His interests; to thus give it their all. There is not a hint of self in that. Witness the Cross—again, we see Jesus Christ ably, dependably, carrying the banner here for God and for us as our Advocate with God (never was known nor shall be known greater Advocacy than the Cross).
God’s friends do not cheat God; no reliability to be found in a cheat. Judas Iscariot was a cheat for example. Cheating connotes a lot of “self.” Cheaters are not trustworthy and make poor friends. Jesus did not cheat Salvation (and God) to spare Himself the humiliation and the pain (Matthew 26:39—Jesus in Gethsemane). God’s friend is reliable, a loyal ambassador, “on the job” for God according to His wishes, every day (Proverbs 20:6, NLT). A reliable friend does not quit when the going gets tough. A reliable friend “sticks with God” no matter what. In another sense, reliability stems from God (1Samuel 3:19, NLT).
And God’s friends responsibly steward the things of God entrusted to them by God (with regard to this entire point, contrast Eli and his sons, “Eli and the Church”).
5. God’s friend is transparent before God. And this is transparency before God, even friendship with Him: 1John 1:8-10.
How does one lie to God?! If Truth is “God’s reality,” then lying to God pretends to impose upon Him another reality besides His (“Ti Estin Alhqeia”).
A liar is hardly trustworthy as touching on point four. Satan is the father of lies says Jesus (John 8:44). Not trustworthy this unclean thing; deceit, not least, qualifies his uncleanness. Satan pretends to impose another reality—his own—upon God. Satan is a fool in doing this, as are any similarly a fool who thus pretend to impress their own reality upon the Owner of Reality, even Jehovah God. Whether at the infinitesimally small scale where quantum effects hold, or way on out where (general) relativistic effects hold, in the physical sense, or on the spiritual side, it is all, physical or spiritual, Jehovah God’s Reality, and His alone[2]. He alone is Prime Mover. Infinite energy, intelligence, wisdom, knowledge, and holiness are entirely His, and any created being that pretends to impose upon that Reality is a fool, and thus are liars fools. Let us remember 1John 1:9, and not be fools, or worse actually—that is, let us not find ourselves without Jehovah God’s friendship.
6. This one is a no-brainer. God’s friend loves God, and delights in Him, and in His friends. Here is a summary-statement of the great commandment we mentioned in point one. Question: How does one love God? (Hint, what is Jesus’ guidance here in John 14:15? Please discuss and elaborate.) So loving God, a heart-emotion, nevertheless correlates to obedience, which is a shoe leather act, where the act is motivated by the emotion (and reason of course). Emotions are oftentimes action “drivers.” If the proper emotion isn’t there, said act may not follow.
Now to delight, is to enjoy; to delight in God, is to enjoy Him, which presupposes experiencing Him, which experience comes through Jesus Christ (“Show us the Father”). Enjoying God; the joy of the Lord (Nehemiah 8:10). Why is the joy of the Lord our strength? We understand this in the sense of God being our joy. The world offers happiness, oftentimes emotionally driven, and yes, some joy, but all-alike fleeting; quick-fix elixirs. Jehovah God offers spiritual joy that penetrates and suffuses the soul, and while the former is fleeting, the latter is lasting, beyond one’s last breath even, and there is strength to be had in that because it transcends the physical. Physical, is tantamount to weak; physical things are always weak; strength, is in the Spirit engaging one’s spirit; that, is indescribable joy. That is no doubt how God’s martyrs can face their end with a song on their lips oftentimes, in the joy of the Lord is how they do it. Let us enjoy God and be strong, strong for Him, strong per se.
No less does God’s friend love God’s friends, His Beloved, the Flock, the Christian Brethren. God’s friend is a dependable, reliable, trustworthy friend to God’s friends, and doesn’t cheat them, or lie to them, is transparent before them, and loves them, pleasantly “fusses” over them if you will, and delights in them, and rejoices in their Salvation, and greatly anticipates spending eternity with them in the presence of Jehovah God.
7. Dear Christian friend, how do you and I treat our friends? Probably we treat our Friend God somewhat similarly. What friends we are down here in shoe leather to our earthly friends is probably the kind of friend we are to Jehovah God in spirit. Christ bless you dearest Christian friends!
Praised be your Name great Jehovah God, even Friend. We love you, even you, our best Friend. Amen.