02/13/2024
A dear friend of mine, Sherry Burke, wrote this last year. I love the communion she has with Jesus!
Am I a Friend of God? This has been a question in my heart for months. I knew that God was birthing something inside of me. This has been a theme that just kept coming up to me. I would hear it in pod cast, read in it books, hear it in worship song, overhear it in conversations and so on. I ordered some “Prophetic Worship Flags”a while back. I didn’t choose what color or style or meaning of the flag. It was chosen for me. Anyways, the ones that I received were called “Friend of God.” They are purple, teal, and white representing and open communication with God based on love, devotion, and purity. They came with came with this card that said:
“Greater love has no on than this: to lay downs one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I know longer call you servants, because a servant does to know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I have learned from my Father I have made known to you.” John 15: 13-15
Even as I am writing this, I am seeing how many ways God could reveal his heart and desire for us to go deeper more intimate places.
Relationship has always been the heart of God. I knew there was something special about today. I knew that God wanted to meet with me and share something special with me. Today, I decided that I wasn’t satisfied with some else revelation about what it means to be a Friend of God; I wanted my own revelation from God and to hear from Him myself. As a Children of God, we each have our own responsibility to know what God is saying and respond to what He is saying.
Even as a Child, I loved the Word of God. I loved to find things in the Bible and investigate it and find connections through out scripture. I don’t take the time to do that as much as I did went I was younger, but I get so excited when I find something new. God has been taking me back to my child-like faith. I have been remembering the relationship I had with God then, and the God told me recently about some of those memories “Re-dig those wells.”
Anyways, I felt like I was supposed to read Genesis. I can’t explain it to you all things, but here are some key things about what it means to be a Friend of God: Intimacy, Trust, and Obedience.
Intimacy- know the heart of God.
Trust/Faith goes hand in hand with obedience. To love God is to obey Him. However, that obedience comes out of place of intimacy with the Father. God doesn’t want a bunch of people who serve Him; He was communion –He wants relationship with us. I was reading about the garden that God made. This where we first see God’s heart and desire for us. We were made for Him. We were his desire. It was always His longing for us to have a partnership with Him.
“The Lord God took the man and put him the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man. “You are fee to eat rom any tree in the garden: but you must not eat from the tree of Knowledge of Good Evil, for when you eat it you will surly die” Genesis 3:15-28 Then it goes into God creating a suitable helper for Adam. Its not good for man to be alone. And then it goes into God forms the animals, then He takes Adam to see what Adam would name them.
God’s intentions are all through out the Creation story, but here we see that God Desired Adam to be in the Garden with Him and Co-Labor with him in the creation. Adam had a part and a responsibility in what God had created and intended.
That partnership coincided right with those key things: Intimacy, Trust and Obedience. God gave the Word not to eat from the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. We can read later on that Adam and Eve did not trust the words that God spoke to them and that lead into disobedience. It led to another type of Desire other than the one that they were created for. A type of desire that lead to shame, guilt, pride, and separation.
Do you know what the first question God asked in the Bible? It’s in Genesis 3:9. Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of Knowledge of Good and Evil because they were ashamed because they were naked. They made this decision to not trust what God said. They wanted to make for themselves what is good and what is evil. God made all things and said it was Good. All sudden, the they felt the need to cover themselves up and hid the intimate parts of themselves from God.
The first thing that God asks is “Where Are You?” “Where Are You?” We see the center of God’s desire. It’s to be with us.
I heard this song. It goes: To be your friend. To know your thoughts. How Rare. How Beautiful. I am with you now and I can feel you breathing. And I’ll rest right here with you.
God breathed breath in our Lungs. He breathed His Spirit into our bodies and gave not only life, but His Life. I don’t think it was a coincidence that after 6 days of creation and after each day say it was Good, the 7th day He Rested. The heart of God is I want it to stay like this forever.
This is God’s desire. What is yours?
I read in a book once that the Root words of Desire in Latin.
De-of Sire-the father Desire=of the father
We know the Desires of the father, but what are the desires that we are allowing to father us. The Bible says God is a Father (John 8 ). But do you know who else the Bible says is a father? -“You belong your father the devil, and you want to carry out his desires.” (John 8:44)
What/ whom have we been in communion with? What desires have we become intimate with and partnered with? What thoughts, words, desires are you obeying or trusting. Those desires from that place will be birthed in our heart. We have a natural hand craved desire I our heart for intimacy. It was what we were created for. Our heart is a place of encounter. It is a hidden place of intimacy where desire is birthed.
In Romans 8, it says the mature Children follow the impulses of the Holy Spirit. God wants to have a friendship with that, but more than that he wants to be our Father as well.
Intimacy with the Father is Key. Trusting who the Father is and what he is key. Obeying what the Father says and following those Holy Spirit impulses is key.
To be a Friend of God, is to be moved by His heart and His desires.
