Jacob Ninan
Many Christians have thought of God as the Creator, Heavenly Father, Lawgiver, Judge, Healer, etc., and Jesus as the Saviour. For some Christians God is so far away that He is not actually real to them, and for some others, God is treated with such familiarity that they don't have any reverence or fear towards Him. Comparatively fewer Christians seem to know Him as their Friend in their practical experience in daily life. But when God created man, His ultimate aim was to create those with whom He could have fellowship. And, it is with those with whom He can have fellowship that He can be friends with. That is why among all the other creatures who have not been made that way, He created us in His own image (God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Gen.1:27). We start with having a positional relationship with God through being born again, but then we can go on to experiencing a real friendship with Him as we go through the sweat and toil of practical life.
We read about Abraham, the patriarch of the Jews, as having been a friend of God (And the Scripture was fulfilled that says, "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness" ... and he was called a friend of God. Jas.2:23). As a Friend of Abraham, God felt compelled to share with him His plans for dealing with the people of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen.18:17,18). We see there that Abraham had the liberty to discuss with God about the conditions under which God could stop from destroying those people. That is what we mean by our friendship with God, where we can talk with God about everything in our life, and listen to Him as He talks to us in ways which we can understand.
We may assume that Abraham could have that kind of friendship with God because he was a great man, a patriarch and all, while small people like us cannot really aspire for that. But we should not forget that Abraham also grew up over many years to become like that, having been tested by God and found trustworthy. Abraham started off from an idol worshipping family, and it took many years for his faith and faithfulness to develop. This encourages us to believe that if we want, we too can grow up to live in friendship with God. In fact, that would be the highest grace we can have while we still live on this earth. Under the new covenant of grace which Jesus has given us, now it is possible for the 'least of us' to know God and to walk with Him (And they shall not teach everyone his fellow citizen, And everyone his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' For all will know Me, From the least to the greatest of them. Heb.8:11). The apostle John said his desire was that everyone would come to experience grace in such a way that they could have fellowship with God and with one another. (What we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ. 1Jn.1:3).
Why is it that if God has made it possible for all of us to walk in fellowship with Him and enjoy His friendship many of us are not actually experiencing that? The goal of this message is to point out how each of us can enter into that experience.
Remember, God has made it possible for the least of us to know Him and experience His friendship. Therefore, the way forward is very simple. It is not a matter of strictly keeping a large number of rules and regulations, because if it were so, none of us would ever be able to come to that kind of a life. It is so simple that it becomes easy for all people who have become children of God. It is not a perfect life that God looks for from us because it would be totally unrealistic to expect that from us. God knows that He is dealing with imperfect people, who will continue to be imperfect in many different ways even after they have become friends with Him. Remember, Abraham was imperfect even when God treated Him as a friend!
What God wants from us is a heart that is perfect towards Him (For the eyes of the Lord move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His. 2Chr.16:9). When God talks about a heart that is completely His, He does not mean a sinless perfection because that is impossible for us as long as we live on this earth with the remains of our sinful nature. God knows that, and therefore He does not ask for a sinlessly perfect heart, but a heart that is turned to God even in the presence of a sinful flesh. The apostle Paul had a very clear understanding of this. He said, "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin" (Rom.7:25). It is not sinless perfection that He is talking about here, but living for God with all His heart on one side while on the other side recognising that sometimes he was being overcome by his sinful flesh. That is how he understood the practical Christian life, that the victory of salvation was that he was living for God from his heart even though another part of him, his sinful flesh, was making him do sometimes the things his mind hated.
The apostle John also presents the same reality, even though he says it in a different way. He says, "My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous;" (1Jn.2:1). It is not sinless perfection, but a desire to live perfectly before God coupled with the provision for forgiveness if we fall.
It is on this level that we can have friendship with God – where we live in such a way that we always want to do what is pleasing to Him, and asking for forgiveness when we fail. To say it again, such a life is not one where we never fail, and it is not also one where we sin carelessly and assume that God is there to forgive us. Our heart intention must be right with God.
God is 'light' and there is no darkness in Him (1Jn.1:5). "If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth" (1Jn.1:6). We cannot be friends with God if we are walking in darkness. The condition for enjoying friendship with God is that we must be walking in the light.
Jesus explained very clearly that to walk in darkness was to live in such a way that we had things to be hidden from God. "This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God" (Jn.3:19-21). Walking in the light before God means that our life is entirely open to Him, that there is nothing in our life that we are trying to hide from His sight. It is such people who can have friendship with God. We must not forget here that there is no one who never makes a mistake or who never sins in any way, in thought, word or deed. Then what does it mean to walk in the light? It means that we sincerely seek to avoid sinning and to live in a manner that is always pleasing to God, and when we fall, we bring that also openly to God asking for forgiveness.
We may walk in darkness in two ways. We may knowingly do things we are aware are displeasing to God. Then our heart is not bent on being pleasing to Him. The second way is to hide when we fall, without bringing up our failures before God and forgiveness.
How do we do the second thing, hiding our sins from God? By not admitting that we have sinned, excusing our sins by blaming others or the situations, etc. Actually, if we admit our sins as soon as we become aware of them, there is immediate forgiveness available from God. After that, we can continue to walk in friendship with God. But when we don't even admit our sins, we lose our experience of friendship with God because darkness has come into our life. There is no need for that. God has already taken into consideration the fact that we will fall now and then, and He has made provisions for our forgiveness (1Jn.1:9). But isn't it simple to be always honest before God and walk in the light?
Another dimension of walking in the light is in our relationship with other people. "Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling" (1Jn.2:9,10). What is important in walking in the light in relation to people is that there should not be any hatred in our heart towards anybody. The opposite of hating is to love them, meaning, to wish only good for them and to do what we can from our side for their good. In order to do this, we must be willing to forgive others as soon as we realise they have done something wrong to us, and to bear with what we see as their weaknesses. One big help for us when it comes to this is to keep in mind that we have received our own forgiveness from God as an undeserved favour from God and that we have no right to hold anything but the same attitude towards other people. "Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you" (Eph.4:32). "Now we who are strong ought to bear the weaknesses of those without strength and not just please ourselves" (Rom.15:1). Our actual contact with the others will also depend on their attitude and behaviour, but the least we can do is to keep our heart right towards them. That is to walk in the light.
If we have sinned against anyone in deed, we can apologise to them and set things right as much as possible. If we have sinned against others only in our thoughts we can confess that to God as a way of walking in the light before Him and keeping our heart right before God.
"Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need" (Heb.4:16). As friends do, one way of developing our friendship with God is to converse with Him all the time, asking Him for help either for forgiving our sins or for strength to overcome temptations, talking to Him about all the things that are happening in our life, what we think and feel about different things, asking Him for understanding, wisdom and guidance, etc. Of course, God always listens to us but sometimes His answers may come later and sometimes not in the way we expect. But getting to know Him more like this, and walking with the boldness of always being open to God is the blessing of this friendship. Here is a Friend who is always there with us, who is the best Friend anyone can have, with whom we can be completely open and know that He understands us completely, that He is not out to judge us but to save us. What a privilege God has given to us as a free gift?
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