Being a friend of God, on the surface, may sound ridiculous. To begin with I am assuming there is a Creator, and the One is relational. I refer to God as One, knowing full well, that from the first verse of the Bible, this One uses the plural form of God in the original Hebrew. Genesis 1:1 Our Creator is both One and more than one. The original nature of God is social. This truth is supported throughout the Bible and it lends credence to the idea of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. . . as One. Only the Creator could make this up and make it work. (Not sure? Please go ahead and research to prove this wrong.)
Many of you know this story, however, I invite you to follow along. It is the beginning of a love story that includes us all.
This social concept of our Creator, is simply one motivation for God to make us. This One knew, from before our creation, that it would not be easy, because we are created in the image of God. At the same time are not God, but having that spark in us makes us hungry for more.
When we are made, we were instantly put in charge of the entire earth. Genesis 1:26 “Then God said, “Let us make man[h] in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” . . . “it was very good.” V31 This is a heady position for us created beings. We are not like the rest of Creation. [Pride]
So, what happened to this ideal beginning? By chapter three, the first two people chose, just like we would, to do the only thing we were told not to do. (Keep in mind there are 1,189 chapters in the Bible and we are only on chapter three.) That broke our fellowships with Creator, so we tried to hide. [Disobedience, failure and shame, all in one short act.]
That made being a friend of God challenging, at best. But there is good news! Already in verse 3:15, just as if Our Creator had anticipated this possibility, the solution to the broken relationship was prophesied, and the solution set in motion. Their offspring mentioned in that verse, as we read the rest of the Bible, is clearly Jesus of Nazareth. He is uniquely qualified to pay the only satisfactory price to reinstate our friendship with God. And He does it completely.
By the gracious nature of our God, we are given the capacity to balance our natural tendency to either think too highly of ourselves, or too little of ourselves. Not a super easy thing to do without help. Fortunately, God already thought that through as well. We have the Word of God, which is the Bible, as well as Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, who lives inside the followers of Jesus, to seal and empower us.
You see: “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.” 2 Peter 1:3-4
Depending on, and cooperating with, Creators divine power, freely and completely given, opens the possibility of being a friend of God and even makes maintaining this friendship fun. The freedom of not having to work to be accepted, but choosing to please the One who has already accepted us. . . is life giving.
Abba, You love us more than we will ever understand while we live here, but I for one want to know you better. I want to experience the friendship you have intended from before creation. I am excited that you also want to be my friend. That is why you have gone to such great lengths to make it happen. Thank you for making the possibility of being our friend a reality. Amen
