Day13: Developing Your Friendship

 Developing Your Friendship 

with God

He offers his friendship to the godly.

Proverbs 3:32 (NLT)

Draw close to God, and God 

will draw close to you.

James 4:8 (NLT)

You are as close to God as you choose to be.

Like any friendship, you must work at developing your

friendship with God. It won’t happen by accident. It takes desire,

time, and energy. If you want a deeper, more intimate connection

with God you must learn to honestly share your feelings with

him, trust him when he asks you to do something, learn to care

about what he cares about, and desire his friendship more than

anything else.

I must choose to be honest with God. The first building

block of a deeper friendship with God is complete honesty—

about your faults and your feelings. God doesn’t expect you to

be perfect, but he does insist on complete honesty. None of

God’s friends in the Bible were perfect. If perfection was a

requirement for friendship with God, we would never be able to

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be his friends. Fortunately, because of God’s grace, Jesus is still

the “friend of sinners.” 1

In the Bible, the friends of God were honest about their

feelings, often complaining, second-guessing, accusing, and

arguing with their Creator. God, however, didn’t seem to be

bothered by this frankness; in fact, he encouraged it. 

God allowed Abraham to question and challenge him over the

destruction of the city of Sodom. Abraham pestered God over

what it would take to spare the city, negotiating God down from

fifty righteous people to only ten. 

God also listened patiently to David’s many accusations of

unfairness, betrayal, and abandonment. God did not slay Jeremiah

when he claimed that God had tricked him. Job was allowed to

vent his bitterness during his ordeal, and in the end, God

defended Job for being honest, and he rebuked Job’s friends for

being inauthentic. God told them, “You haven’t been honest either

with me or about me—not the way my friend Job has. . . . My friend

Job will now pray for you and I will accept his prayer.” 2

In one startling example of frank friendship,3 God honestly

expressed his total disgust with Israel’s disobedience. He told

Moses he would keep his promise to give the Israelites the

Promised Land, but he wasn’t going one step farther with them in

the desert! God was fed up, and he

let Moses know exactly how he felt. 

Moses, speaking as a “friend” of

God, responded with equal candor:

“‘Look, you tell me to lead this people

but you don’t let me know whom

you’re going to send with me. . . . If

I’m so special to you, let me in on

your plans. . . . Don’t forget, this is YOUR people, your

responsibility. . . . If your presence doesn’t take the lead here, call this

trip off right now! How else will I know that you’re with me in this,

with me and your people? Are you traveling with us or not? . . .’ God

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God doesn’t expect you to be

perfect, but he does insist on

complete honesty.

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said to Moses, ‘All right. Just as you say; this also I will do, for I know

you well and you are special to me.’” 4

Can God handle that kind of frank, intense honesty from you?

Absolutely! Genuine friendship is built on disclosure. What may

appear as audacity God views as authenticity. God listens to the

passionate words of his friends; he is bored with predictable, pious

clichés. To be God’s friend, you must be honest to God, sharing

your true feeling, not what you

think you ought to feel or say.

It is likely that you need to

confess some hidden anger and

resentment at God for certain areas

of your life where you have felt

cheated or disappointed. Until we

mature enough to understand that God uses everything for good

in our lives, we harbor resentment toward God over our

appearance, background, unanswered prayers, past hurts, and

other things we would change if we were God. People often

blame God for hurts caused by others. This creates what William

Backus calls “your hidden rift with God.”

Bitterness is the greatest barrier to friendship with God: Why

would I want to be God’s friend if he allowed this? The antidote,

of course, is to realize that God always acts in your best interest,

even when it is painful and you don’t understand it. But releasing

your resentment and revealing your feeling is the first step to

healing. As so many people in the Bible did, tell God exactly how

you feel.5

To instruct us in candid honesty, God gave us the book of

Psalms—a worship manual, full of ranting, raving, doubts, fears,

resentments, and deep passions combined with thanksgiving,

praise, and statements of faith. Every possible emotion is

catalogued in the Psalms. When you read the emotional

confessions of David and others, realize this is how God wants you

to worship him—holding back nothing of what you feel. You can

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Bitterness is the greatest barrier

to friendship with God. 

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pray like David: “I pour out my complaints before him and tell him

all my troubles. For I am overwhelmed.” 6

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. 

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

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DAY TWELVE:

DEVELOPING

YOUR

FRIENDSHIP

WITH GOD

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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.

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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

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

Jacob’s passion for God’s blessing on his life was so intense that

he wrestled in the dirt all night with God, saying, “I will not let

you go unless you bless me.” 15 The amazing part of that story is that

God, who is all powerful, let Jacob win! God isn’t offended when

we “wrestle” with him, because wrestling requires personal

contact and brings us close to him! It is also a passionate activity,

and God loves it when we are passionate with him.

Paul was another man passionate for friendship with God.

Nothing mattered more; it was the first priority, total focus, and

ultimate goal of his life. This is the reason God used Paul in such

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The more you become God’s

friend, the more you will care

about the things he cares about.

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a great way. The Amplified translation expresses the full force of

Paul’s passion: “My determined purpose is that I may know Him—

that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately

acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and

understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly and more

clearly.” 16

The truth is—you are as close to God as you choose to be.

Intimate friendship with God is a choice, not an accident. You

must intentionally seek it. Do you really want it—more than

anything? What is it worth to you? Is it worth giving up other

things? Is it worth the effort of developing the habits and skills

required?

You may have been passionate about God in the past but

you’ve lost that desire. That was the problem of the Christians in

Ephesus—they had left their first love. They did all the right

things, but out of duty, not love. If you’ve just been going

through the motions spiritually, don’t be surprised when God

allows pain in your life. 

Pain is the fuel of passion—it energizes us with an intensity to

change that we don’t normally possess. C. S. Lewis said, “Pain is

God’s megaphone.” It is God’s way of arousing us from spiritual

lethargy. Your problems are not punishment; they are wake-up

calls from a loving God. God is not mad at you; he’s mad

about you, and he will do whatever it takes to bring

you back into fellowship with him. But there is an

easier way to reignite your passion for God: Start

asking God to give it to you, and keep on asking

until you have it. Pray this throughout your day:

“Dear Jesus, more than anything else, I want to

get to know you intimately.” God told the

captives in Babylon, “When you get serious about finding

me and want it more than anything else, I’ll make sure you won’t be

disappointed.” 17

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Your Most Important Relationship 

There is nothing—absolutely nothing—more important than

developing a friendship with God. It’s a relationship that will last

forever. Paul told Timothy, “Some of these people have missed the

most important thing in life—they don’t know God.” 18 Have you

been missing out on the most important thing in life? You can do

something about it starting now. Remember, it’s your choice. You

are as close to God as you choose to be.

Day Twelve

Thinking about My Purpose

Point to Ponder: I’m as close to God as I choose to be.

Verse to Remember: “Draw close to God, and God will

draw close to you.”  James 4:8a (NLT)

Question to Consider: What practical choices will I

make today in order to grow closer to God? 

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