Abiding in the VineSample

Abiding in God’s Friendship

Do you know that God calls you his friend? As a believer, you have gained friendship with a God who exemplifies perfect, unconditional love. You have gained relationship with your Creator, whose greatest desire is simply to spend time with you. Allow the love of your heavenly Father to sink in for a minute. Allow the Spirit to reveal to you God’s motives today as we look at what it means for us to abide in the friendship of God.

John 15:13 ESV says, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” Jesus committed the greatest act of love this world has ever known in laying down his life. And he did so willingly out of his desire for relationship with us. God desired friendship with you to the level that he would send his only Son to die in order to restore what sin had destroyed.

The questions before you today are: Are you experiencing the fruits of friendship with Jesus? Are you receiving the satisfaction that comes from abiding in relationship with God? The Holy Spirit’s desire today is to lead you into a greater depth of friendship with your Creator, who laid down his own life for your sake. What he asks of you today is to make time to invest in your friendship with him as you would any other relationship. He asks that you would value relationship with him to the level that you would commit time and energy to it. Just as marriage cannot be fruitful or enjoyable without investment from both parties, we must invest in our friendship with God to receive all that relationship with him is designed to bring us.

John 15:14 makes it clear that true friendship with God is following his commands. Jesus has revealed the pathway to abundant life. And he’s led us to that path by laying down his own life that we might have the Holy Spirit working within us. To be friends with Jesus is to choose to lay down our own lives in response to his loving sacrifice. To walk in friendship with God is to choose humility over pride and follow the path set before us in Jesus. We are no longer servants unaware of the plans and will of our master, but friends who have heard, seen, and experienced the truth.

Will you choose friendship with God over the world today? Will you choose to follow the will of the God who laid down his life for yours? Will you walk down the pathway of life today, or will you choose to go your own way? True friendship with God is fully available to you today if you will follow the life-giving commandments of Jesus and make space and time to invest in your relationship with him. Nothing will bring you greater satisfaction than living out of the abundance of friendship with Jesus. Revelation 3:20 ESV says, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.” Open the door of your heart to the God of love today and spend time fellowshipping with him.

Reflection & Prayer:

• Do you think of yourself more as God’s servant or his friend?
• What would it look like to invest more deeply in your friendship with him?
• Are there relationships or priorities you’ve placed above friendship with God?

Prayer:
Jesus, thank you for calling me your friend. Forgive me for when I’ve neglected our relationship. Help me to choose humility, obedience, and time with you over everything else. Teach me to walk in the joy of your friendship today. In Jesus’s name, Amen.