Day 12: Developing your Friendship With God

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"What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you?  You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God.  When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures."  James 4:1-3

We now know from day 11 that God wants our friendship, so how do we develop this?  How do we get closer to God and release our ego and self-centered tendencies?

1.  Choose To Be Honest With God
God never wants to hear bits and pieces of how you feel.  He does not want feelings of how we think we should feel or act or what to say.  He is waiting for the most intense truths you can give Him.  It honors Him when we can become vulnerable with Him no matter the situation.  It could be an argument, complaint, accusation, anger, resentment, doubt, etc.  No problem is worth hiding when we are speaking with God.

2.  Choose To Obey God In Faith
There are many times where things are asked of us which we do not understand.  There are many times where we incur pains and sorrows, places and people which we do not understand.  He places us with a purpose and asks that we embrace it with our inner most love.  He enjoys seeing us lovingly doing the small things which others' may not notice we do like being kind, making someone smile, telling the truth, and making time for someone in need.  Once in a lifetime are just that--once!  The small oppurtunies mentioned above among others surround us each and every day.  Take a chance on God as He continually takes a chance on us-Do it with love & obedience!

3.  Choose To Value What God Values
True friends value what the other person values [even when it goes against their beliefs].  A friend does not have to understand how you feel or why you made a certain choice; they need to be able to respect who you are and your value behind it.  This of course does not mean letting a friend shoot up heroin or beating their child.  It still has to have value-God's value!  Respect God's choice to make you short, skinny, blue
-eyed, freckly, smart, or asian.  Know that when you cry, he cries.  When you are angry, He is angry.  Be comforted in grace and decisions which would make Him smile.

4.  Desire Friendship With God More Than Anything Else
"You are as close to God as you choose to be."   (The Purpose Driven Life, Warren pg. 61)  The great thing about any friendship is it is a choice not an accident.  We choose who to be friends with.  So start arousing those inner most pains and fight it out with God.  "Your problems are not punishment; they are wake-up calls from a loving God." (pg. 65)  Continue to ask Him for His friendship no matter the obstacles or temptations to lure you away.  What will you choose?

"Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.  Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.  Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.  Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up."   James 4:7-10

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