Friends

Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.
John 15:14

I confess that has been a scripture that has caused me to scratch my head and wonder. I know it's because of how I think on friendship. And I just have never connected "friendship" with the concept that someone must do whatever I say in order to be my friend.

I didn't let it bother me. It's the Word of God. It's true regardless of what my opinion of it is.

But I've been reading in the Old Testament in my Bible reading for some time now and after awhile I begin to see a pattern in what's going on there. It truly amazed me how many times down through all those years that the people who were supposed to be God's people went off to serve other Gods and did "evil in the sight of the Lord". (And the evil they did was evil in the sight of anyone who has any concept of what right and wrong would be.)

The pattern that I saw was that any time any of those leaders would turn back to God and do what was right, God would bless them and prosper them and show His love for them. In other words, He LOVES TO, WANTS TO, is just waiting to, be good to the righteous.

I had already been thinking about that and then once again I came across, "You are my friends if you do whatsover I command you" and a "light came on in my head".

God is there waiting to be a Friend to anyone who is willing to live righteously.

His commandments bring us to a point of right living.

He cannot be a friend to someone who is giving themselves over to unrighteousness. ("Your sins have separated you" from Him.)

But when sin is gone--which is achieved by applying His teachings to our lives (keeping His commandments), then we are in a position that THE GOD OF HEAVEN, our Creator, the Great I Am, the Alpha and Omega--the Beginning and the End-- will be our Friend.

And He is.

It's truly amazing how close He will be to us, what He will do for us, the things He will take care of.

The degree of closeness that is achieved in this friendship with God is not contingent upon Him. It's all on us. How much time are we willing to give Him, to spend with Him, to talk to Him, to let Him lead and guide us.

It's awesome to have God as my Friend.

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