Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: Obedience (01/31/05)
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TITLE: The 4th "D"imension | Previous Challenge Entry
By L.M. Lee
02/06/05 -
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I do not know about you, but how many of us approach our friendships based on their adherence to our “commands.”? I do not think I ever have. The majority of my friendships have been built on common interests and compatibilities, never on their willingness to obey me. The desire to submit to each other’s authority was not the drawing card.
But this is God who is offering friendship. What an amazing concept! In fact, in no other religious philosophy, other than Christianity, is the possibility of friendship with God even discussed, much less a reality.
When I think about the benefits of friendship with God, it is staggering. Friends share things. Imagine calling God up and asking to borrow His yacht for the weekend. His yacht is all gold plated, diamond incrusted with a crew of angels at your command. I realize in this lifetime, that will not be my reality, but maybe in the next!
Think about the people who have befriended God. Only a select few have made the cut. Names like Abraham, Enoch, Elijah, Noah, Moses and Job make up God’s short list. However Jesus offers to widen that circle beyond Peter, James and John.
Yet, friendship with God does have its problems. Talk with Job. “For he has said, ‘A man gains nothing when he becomes God's friend.’" Job 34:9
Ouch! That is a pretty negative thing to say about a friend, especially if that friend happens to be the Almighty, all-powerful, omnipresent, omnipotent God! I do not think any of my dearest friends would appreciate that comment made from my lips.
What God deals with sometimes is simply unbelievable!
But Job’s relationship with God is not isolated. Look at the lives of the men He took into His confidence. Their lives, their reputations and their plans were usually wrecked when they ventured into friendship with God.
So why bother? Can I remind you of the yacht? Eternal life may be our initial attraction, but anyone who has ever ridden through one of life’s storms with Him, soon understands there is more to this friendship than help over troubled waters.
How do we develop a real friendship with God? Easy, just follow my 4-step program in voila – instant, microwave friendship with God!
Now that you have pulled yourself together, anyone who has ever tried to get anywhere with God, knows the process is never E-A-S-Y, but it is possible if we learn to live in the Fourth “D”imensions.
We start generally all start in “D”esperation. Most of us do not seek God on our own. We come to Him in a time of desperation and need.
Once He has rescued us, cleaned us up a bit, He offers friendship. Friendship with a price. Enter “D”iscipline. No one wants to be disciplined. We all come to God with our own agenda. Mercifully He teaches us that it is His agenda, not ours.
As we submit to the disciplines of relationship with Him: prayer, fasting, studying the Word, commitment to other believers and working in the Lord’s harvest…He brings us to “D”elight.
What a wonderful place when we can delight in our friendship with God. When we look for Him in the cool of the day to walk with Him, listen to Him and share our lives with Him.
For it is in this last dimension that we enter our “D”estiny! We hear so much about destiny. We all secretly yearn to be launched into a destiny that changes the world. Few of us will ever reach it because we settle for living two-dimensional lives…me included.
Yet that is what Jesus promised to His friends, “I do not call you slaves anymore, because a slave doesn't know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have heard from My Father. John 15:15
How would you like to be God’s friend, have Him walk into your tent and whisper the secrets of taking your city for the Kingdom? It is possible if you are His friend!
All scripture quotes are from the Holman Christian Standard Bible© 2001, Broadman & Holman Publishers, Nashville, TN 37234
The opinions expressed by authors may not necessarily reflect the opinion of FaithWriters.com.
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