2002-01-01
Good Morning Faithful Ones,
In continuing our examination of God’s will for friendship and the model Christ showed us in His keeping His covenant agreements with us, we can see one more important aspect of friendship-openness. This is all part of the oneness of the covenant relationship to which we are called. Let me reiterate JN 15: 15 for the sake of seeing God’s will. “I do not call you servants any longer, because a servant does not know what his master is doing. Instead, I call you friends, because I have told you everything I heard from My Father.” As I mentioned before, real friends confide the truth to one another, the whole truth. This is not done with malice, but out of genuine love and caring. It is not done with disrespect, but courteously. This concept of sharing everything the Father has told Him isn’t new to Christ or to those with faith. As far back as PS 25: 14 written during King David’s time, it was mentioned. “The Lord is the Friend of those who obey Him and He affirms His covenant with them.” There is no reason for us not to derive a good deal of comfort from believing this. We already know it can be taken even further back in mankind’s history by our study of Abraham’s and Moses’ stories. I might even go so far as to take it back to the Garden of Eden. I believe that one of the most poignant acts of God’s love and friendship occurs in GN 3: 21 just before Adam and Eve are expelled from the garden. “And the Lord God made clothes out of animal skins for Adam and his wife, and He clothed them.” We shouldn’t miss a blaring fact here. For God to have made clothes out of animal skins, an animal had to be sacrificed and it’s blood shed. Both LV 17: 11 and HE 9: 22, which I hope you will review, reveal how significant that is to forgiveness. I can say with confidence that God is the best Friend any of us will ever have. He is awesome!
At the time that Abraham was pleading for Sodom, God revealed to him the decision He had made. God knew this wasn’t the tender-hearted Abraham’s choice to see Sodom destroyed, but He also understood that Abraham’s human perception was limited. God was open with his friend, Abraham. GN 18: 17, “And the Lord said to Himself, ‘I will not hide from Abraham what I am going to do!’” No one can be sure exactly how much of God’s reason Abraham understood, but this faithful man demonstrated that he was willing to accept God’s decision and not hold a grudge against God, because things didn’t go his way. RO 3: 25-26 reveals God’s view of things to us in making this decision to destroy the city that had achieved Sodom’s level of wickedness. “God offer Him [Christ], so that by His death He should become the means by which people’s sins are forgiven through their faith in Him. God did this in order to demonstrate that He is righteous. In the past He was patient and overlooked people’s sins; but in the present time He deals with their sins, in order to demonstrate His righteousness. In this way God shows that He Himself is righteous and that He puts right everyone who believes in Jesus.”
Anyone who has studied the Scriptures knows that a pattern exists between faithfulness to God and God’s willingness to share what will happen in the future. We see this in the inner self of David exposed in 1 SAM and in PS. David would have never known that God was with him or would protect him from his enemies (like Saul) had God not revealed that to him. Solomon’s wisdom (which God took away toward the end of Solomon’s life because of idolatry and dishonorable marriages) was a trust placed in the young Solomon for his faithfulness. Ezekiel’s visions guided his spiritual leadership and revealed events to happen in Jerusalem to Jewish exiles in Babylonia. Daniel’s visions, especially that of the Seventy Weeks, was God revealing the future to a trusted friend that He held in esteem. Zechariah’s visions allowed him a deeper understanding of the tasks he had before him and the deliverance that would come in his future. [EZK 1: 1-28, 10: 4, 11: 14-16,16: 59-60, 20: 42-43; DN 2: 34-35, 7: 13-14, 9: 24-27,10: 18-19; ZECH 1: 11, 4: 6, 9: 10,12: 6, 13: 8-9, 14: 4]. Don’t let this list of citations intimidate you. They are shared here, so that we can all see examples of the love that God has for those who are faithful and obedient to Him. Enjoy knowing that each of us can be included in that list of those whom God esteems if we are faithful too.
All of these examples of God’s will in His friendship toward those who love, trust, and obey Him are given to us for three important reasons. 1) God wants us to know how much He loves us. 2) He wants us to understand the benefits to us of keeping our covenant agreements with Him. 3) He shows us a model for how we should not only interact with Him, but with each other. That is why He directed Paul to remind us that we love one another and accept one another with the love that Christ has for us. Only a real Friend would have agendas for us such as these. We can take comfort in knowing that our Best Friend is our loving Abba, Whose greatest desire is that we should turn to Him.
PRAYER: O Lord, because You love us, You are eager to share the truth of Your teachings with us. When we listen, You are honored and delighted. Sadly, we often disappoint You. Yet, Your love extends to patience and compassion toward us, even when our behavior shows that we don’t deserve it. In Your infinite wisdom, You know which ones of us will become obedient and learn to trust You and which won’t. Because You must demonstrate Your righteousness, it is sometimes necessary for You to deliver punishments or even, in extreme cases, death. If You did not do this, we who are sometimes stubborn would not see the great benefit to us of keeping our covenant agreements with You. Through all the examples in today’s message, You have shown us the openness with which You treat those who are Your friends. We not only get to see the love of which You are capable, but we are also given an example of how we should behave toward You and toward others. You have shown us that real friendship is grounded in loyalty, wisdom, truth, honor, and unselfishness. We offer our heartfelt gratitude for this important lesson and dedicate ourselves to being to kind of friend to You and to each other that Your will dictates. We approach You in humility eager to deserve Your trust as You gave it to the people in the Scriptures mentioned today. We stand before Your holy altar to offer our adoration, loyalty, worship, trust, obedience, glory, honor, praise, and utmost thanks. In Christ’s name, amen.
Tomorrow, I’m directed to discuss ways that we remember the covenant commitments we have made. There are many examples from the past that God felt were important enough to include in His holy word. One of the greatest demonstrations of God’s love that we have is the simplicity and consistency of His messages to us in the Scriptures. He wants us to learn about things that can’t been seen or held in our hands. While they are not tangible, they are the things that will allow us to become perfected to the point where we are able to answer that invitation to a meeting in the air with Christ. To this end, God has directed the prophets and writers of the Scriptures to convey His lessons in language we can all understand. He is patient enough to recognize the need to repeat many important lessons many times for both emphasis and our retention. Only our Best Friend would take the time to do that our of His profound love for us. Peter and I send you our love too.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn