Are we in DANGER of FRIENDSHIP with God?

[Nicodema]

Someone on another thread elsewhere on the board raised this question:

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by Someone Else:

Are we in danger of losing the sense of what it means to come into the presence of the Almighty Ruler of all? Is salvation merely a cozy intimacy between equal parties?

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Here is the response I offered:

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by Nicodema:

[:"blue"] Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his

friends.

You are my

friends

if you do what I command. I

no longer call you servants,

because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead,

I have called you friends,

for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but

I chose you

and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.

[/]

John 15:13-16.

friend n.

1. A person whom one knows, likes, and trusts.

2. A person whom one knows; an acquaintance.

3. A person with whom one is allied in a struggle or cause; a comrade.

4. One who supports, sympathizes with, or patronizes a group, cause, or movement:

friends of the clean air movement.

Word History:

[:"red"]A

friend

is a lover, literally.[/] The relationship between Latin

amicus

“friend” and

amo

“I love” is clear, as is the relationship between Greek

philos

“friend” and

phile

“I love.” In English, though, we have to go back a millennium before we see the verb related to friend. At that time,

freond

, the Old English word for “friend,” was simply the present participle of the verb

freon

, “to love.” The Germanic root behind this verb is

*fr-

, which meant “to like, love, be friendly to.” Closely linked to these concepts is that of “peace,” and in fact Germanic made a noun from this root,

*frithu-

, meaning exactly that.

(

Source:

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=friend

)

Are we in "danger" of believing the words of Jesus Christ when He calls us not His servants, but His

friends

?

Let's hope!

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What do you think? What does friendship with God mean to you? What does "intimacy" with God mean to you? Do friendship and intimacy preclude or deny the "vertical" aspects of our relationship with God (e.g. His authority and majesty, His "above-us-ness") or are they privileges in the light of those aspects which elevate and ennoble us?

Discuss and share if you like.

Please no arguing or debating. Let's keep this a SHARING format thread. That doesn't mean we don't respond to one another and bounce or launch thoughts off one another; it simply means we keep that to the realm of SHARING rather than "confronting" and we avoid presenting what we have to share in a "stifling" manner that makes it seem as though there is "only one 'right' answer" here and everyone else is wrong. Let's have a positive discussion and share, and maybe we can LEARN from one another as the Holy Spirit guides .....

[Ted Oplinger]

Goodness - in danger of a friendship with God?

I'll share this point - it's a danger God has been ever so patiently pulling me toward (sometimes willingly on my part, other times when I'd rather be left alone by Him!), for my entire life.

Now, why would I want to be left alone by God?

Perhaps there are times where life's circumstance gets between God and me...

Perhaps there are times when God wants to draw me a bit closer than I'm comfortable being...

Or perhaps coming closer to God has given me an insight to me or God that causes me to draw back...for whatever reason (comfort/startle/don't want to accept, etc.)

Will that get the ball rolling?

Ted

[Gerr]

Neither salvation nor the covenant has ever been a relationship between two equal parties. It is our infinitely gracious God condescending to have intimacy with His finite creatures. As I mentioned in the Blood Covenant thread, the Blood Covenant relationship is the closest, most intimate relationship one could possibly make in Middle-Eastern thinking. It is so intimate it is a comingling of lives, of natures. In this intimate friendship, we become partakers of the divine nature. And in this intimate friendship, the Father, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus, in some mystical way come and indwell in the believer, Jn 14:17,23.

[:"blue"]"But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God..." Jn 1:12 NKJ. "He who abides in Me, and I in him..." 15:5 [/]

Gerry

[Pockey]

I love those verses. It's pretty amazing that He says "you are my friends". Developing a friendship with God means to me, spending time with him through prayer, reading His word, and sharing Him with others. My goal is to develop a relationship with Him, so that He *knows* me and I know Him. I don't want Him to come back and say "I don't know you".

[melvin mccarty]

"I'm a child of the king A child of the king With Jesus my savior I'm a child of the king"

mel

[Clio]

Abba Father is not my Friend. He is my beloved Abba.

True Jesus is my Friend, my Beloved Bridegroom, and my Kinsman Redeemer. It is He with Whom I cry, laugh, visit, and plan for the future.

The Holy Spirit is my Advocate, my Friend, and my Teacher. It is He that brings new wisdom and insight. It is He that pleads my case to the Father in the most worthy way, when I cannot plead for myself.

I am not in any danger. Only those I love are still in danger. I know my Abba and my Friends.

Would that I were as certain of my loved ones as I am with Them.

[olger]

Thanks for the question. I love the term friend, that Jesus uses in John. That is enough for me. There is no fear in the term, and thus no danger.

However, there is among Christiandom a growing tendency to regard the Creator as our buddy. It may be this very trend that is addressed in the message "Fear God, and give glory to Him..." I don't think that God wants us to be afraid of Him, but to hold Him in the highest awe.

Adventist self-identity once rested on adherence to external truths found in and accepted from the word of God. The experiential element always has been there, but it was used to define my reaction, my surrender to a new birth, my response to the call of Christ. The submission of all my desires and plans and habits and perspectives and goals and hopes—before the majestic truth that Christ has revealed to me. That’s an objective relationship, friends.

The transaction was objective. There was a subjective element which dealt with my method and my surrender, but not with the elements of truth. The spirit leads me to accept God’s ways, whether it is convenient or not.

Today’s Adventist church has moved measurably from the description I have just given you. Emphasis falls rather incidentally apart from objective truth (True because it was revealed by God).

The stress today is falling on a relationship that relies no longer on revealed truth as it does on inner emotional experience. Hence we have all this feel-good preaching that’s coming from our pulpits, folk. It’s an effort on the part of our pastors to meet the needs that they perceive.

At its popular level, relationship suggests the coming together of mere equal parties, in a format suggesting negotiated agreement of some kind. Almost missing from this formula is the sense of awe—what it means to come into the presence of the Master of the universe. Curiously, the word relationship is all but absent from the Biblical text.

An intimate walk between persons (us) and the Mighty Ruler of all is often presented, but always & only on the basis of overflowing grace. Never on the basis of cozy intimacy between equals.

Related to the above, today’s church finds within it advocates of an ecumenism that downplays doctrine as divisive, substituting experience as the universal solvent that dissolves the differences. Rather than going to the Bible to work out what it actually is teaching, the rigors of such study can be avoided by referring the matter to experience. Not “What does the scripture say?”, but “How do you feel about it?” Not to condemn, but to observe.

A response may be “You feel that way about it, I see it this way, I suppose it really doesn’t matter.” While a place exist for such amelioration of interest in minor issues, in matters of high significance they cannot be resolved on the basis of experience alone. In fact, experience is treacherously deceptive. And what may make me feel good may not be related at all to what God would have me doing.

warm regards,

gcw

[Clio]

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olger said:

And what may make me feel good may not be related at all to what God would have me doing.

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Hmmmm.... Yes. I agree with everything you said, especially the part I have quoted above.

Perhaps you misunderstand my comments on religion vs. relationship. But that may be a fault of semantics and using the best word available to describe something almost indescribable.

The relationship I focus on is directly derived from the Blood Covenant and what that truly means. It is the most individual, sacred, subjective relationship it is possible to have with the Creator, and it is possible solely through His Grace. But once entered in to, in full knowledge of what a Blood Covenant means in all it's implications, it's impossible to pursue religion instead of relationship.

The Bible is the roadmap, the guidebook, the treatise on spiritual warfare, the story of the greatest love ever imagined, and the revealed Word of Abba. It is more relevant today than ever. And a great source of comfort to me.

I have found, however, that when doctrinal disagreements arise, that often I must trust the understanding of others to the teaching, tutoring, and guiding of the Holy Spirit, certain that He will lead each of us into all truth, and that each who truly seeks after the Most High, will be found by Him.

[Nicodema]

[tagging on]

If God had intended all to think alike, then at least one of us is superfluous and unnecessary to this existence.

[Clio]

Which is why when I knew someone truly seeks after Abba, and we disagree on something, I have to leave it with the Spirit. We are all being fit for different tasks and needs on the way Home, and we are each unique.

Abba promises to fulfill the deepest desires of our hearts, and those desires are different in each one of us.

I have found my deepest satisfaction in following where He leads, even when it scares me, because I'm often quite a ways out in left field at times. Yet, He is always faithful, and I have never been disappointed in resting in the Peace of the Spirit and trusting that another believer is being prepared for something other than what He is preparing me for.

There is none who is superfluous to the Creator. He is an Abba of diversity, delighting in each one of us. We think differently in that we all contribute to the amazing variety, diversity, and freedom that is life in Abba.

Can you imagine His pain that so few will accept His offer of salvation made in Grace and Love? That particular uniqueness will be forever quenched at some point if that creation refuses His offer....

[Nicodema]

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olger said:

However, there is among Christiandom a growing tendency to regard the Creator as our buddy.

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I don't see this "growing tendency" you reference. Are you sure this is not simply your mischaracterisation of other people regarding aspects of their lives we have not been placed in seats of judgment upon?

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olger said:

It may be this very trend that is addressed in the message "Fear God, and give glory to Him..." I don't think that God wants us to be afraid of Him, but to hold Him in the highest awe.

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I don't think anyone can truly know God and NOT hold Him in awe ... He tends to have that effect on people ....

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olger said:

Today’s Adventist church has moved measurably from the description I have just given you. Emphasis falls rather incidentally apart from objective truth (True because it was revealed by God).

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Perhaps that is because people are seeking to discover where "objective truth" actually, meaningfully, significantly, practically, and in REALITY intersects with their lives and their own internal experience of their lives. I would not be so quick to disparage this process. Once it is complete, "objective truth" will be far better integrated than if it had been left external, detached, and cognitively dissonant to experiential reality.

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olger said:

The stress today is falling on a relationship that relies no longer on revealed truth as it does on inner emotional experience.

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Perhaps that is because people are tired of listening to toxic double-binding talk when it comes to matters of the heart. On the one hand they are being told feelings don't matter, feelings are dangerous, feelings are suspect, feelings are inferior to faith, feelings are one step away from being entirely satanic in origin, it would seem, listening to some of these who prattle on in this vein. Yet on the other hand they are told an experience in Christ results in certain transformations of the heart which are expressed distinctively in "feeling language" -- gratitude to God, desire to do His will, delight in doing His will, His law, or His way, a decided absence of anger, resentment, envy, etc. (all feelings) and above all: joy in the Lord. Unlike "LOVE" which we can conveniently "sanitize" of all feeling by invoking the verb AGAPE and attaching it as a "principle" which can smoothly proceed from a detached, stoic decision to BEHAVE or ACT in a certain way irregardless of feelings, these other elements are more slippery and less "spinnable". Trying to transform "desire" into a "principle", for example, yields "decision" which is not even remotely related to "desire" because it can operate entirely separate from all considerations of desire whatsoever.

The paucity and dearth of framework in which to resolve this semantic irritation results in massive cognitive dissonance, and frankly, people are sick of it. They are sick of religion that can only operate on the level of mental grit -- screwing up the will-power, trying to parse matters of the heart with the head. People are tired of feigning "principle" in absence of genuine internal transformation, tired of "fake it till you make it" religion (translate: fake it till you DUPE yourself into believing the manufactured and feigned behaviors not only constitute an adequate substitute for the HEART transformation sought but are, in the end, all one can reasonably expect from one's faith and relationship with God!!! Say WHAT???)

OK I admit it -- I'm saying "people" when I should probably be just saying "ME" -- but I have a strong hunch I'm not alone in this.

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olger said:

Hence we have all this feel-good preaching that’s coming from our pulpits, folk. It’s an effort on the part of our pastors to meet the needs that they perceive.

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Then perhaps instead of castigating them for doing so, we might make an effort to understand what those needs are, where they come from, and why they are there, instead of trying to shove new wine into old wineskins and catalyzing the ruin of both?

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olger said:

An intimate walk between persons (us) and the Mighty Ruler of all is often presented, but always & only on the basis of overflowing grace. Never on the basis of cozy intimacy between equals.

... Related to the above, today’s church finds within it advocates of an ecumenism that downplays doctrine as divisive, substituting experience as the universal solvent that dissolves the differences.

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I'm not a big fan of invoking heavily-emotionally-laden boogeymen to back a point, particularly where one is essentially arguing for the rational/intellectual versus the "emotional". For the record, nowhere have I pronounced doctrine itself to be an agent of divisiveness nor experience an universal solvent of differences.

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olger said:

Rather than going to the Bible to work out what it actually is teaching, the rigors of such study can be avoided by referring the matter to experience. Not “What does the scripture say?”, but “How do you feel about it?” Not to condemn, but to observe.

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Your observation is inaccurate because it is based upon an artificial dichotomy. Is the fact that I sit down to leisure pursuits in itself evidence that I never work? Is the fact that I lay down to sleep at night evidence that I never rise? Is the matter that I am not at this moment taking a shower evidence that I never wash myself??? You are building a "federal case" out of pure straw here, pretending that the existence of the devotional use of Scripture precludes or eliminates other uses for Scripture. While you claim you are only "observing" and not "condemning", you do in fact "condemn" because you state that the pursuit of the devotional use of Scripture is indicative of some intent/motive/desire to "AVOID" its rigorous study. This is not even remotely true.

The fact of the matter remains that a relationship with God -- and we may assume for sake of hypothesis an entirely "vertical" relationship here of awesome Majesty graciously stooping to interact with lowly peon -- is a dynamic thing, not a static thing, and that even in the communication of absolute objective truths, the dynamic component is indisputable and indispensible -- we must still "walk out" and "live through" what God would teach, show, or communicate to us through His word, and we must each do so on an individual level -- vicariously adopting the experience of someone else, even someone whose experience is doctrinally impeccable and unimpeachable -- will NOT suffice here. The Word is given NOT merely as a static pronouncement, wherein each passage has but one meaning and purpose to be thoroughly ascertained by lawyering one's way through it and pitting one's exegetical and bibliographical skills against any other putting forth any slight deviation from said postulated absolute perfect meaning and purpose. No, no, no!!! It is a LIVING Word, a dynamic, INTERACTIVE Word, brought to life by the Holy Spirit of God who inspired it and in that inspiration, built into it multiple layers of communicative potential between His AWESOME, INCREDIBLE, DYNAMIC, INTERACTIVE, COMPLEX, MULTI-DIMENSIONAL SELF and any given human mind that might seek Him through that Word.

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olger said:

A response may be “You feel that way about it, I see it this way, I suppose it really doesn’t matter.”

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Au contraire, it does matter. But it may matter to me in a different sense than that in which it matters to you. Remember when Jesus mentioned the Pharisees tithed mint, anise and cumin, but neglected the weightier matters of the law such as justice and mercy? He then said, "these ought ye to have done, and not left the other undone." Well as far as I can tell it is the same thing here. People look to scripture to establish indisputable doctrinal conclusions, and back these with impeccable analysis of the Greek and/or Hebrew as well as appeals to past authority on the subject whose writings agree with the conclusions they are seeking to present themselves (of course they cherry pick and discount anything that doesn't support what they are seeking to establish; that is inevitable). Yet they spit upon those who would pursue a dynamic, interactive, living and personal encounter with the True and Living God presented by and within and through those same Scriptures. Jesus Himself stated, "Ye search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are they that testify of ME -- yet you will not come to ME that you might HAVE life ..." In other words, this (pursuit of dynamic relationship) ought they to do, without leaving the other (understanding sound doctrine) undone. And, I hasten to add, without accusing those doing this of leaving the other undone.

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olger said:

While a place exist for such amelioration of interest in minor issues, in matters of high significance they cannot be resolved on the basis of experience alone. In fact, experience is treacherously deceptive. And what may make me feel good may not be related at all to what God would have me doing.

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I am sorry for you, that your experience has been "treacherously deceptive." I have had experiences of that nature and I know what kind of upset, torment and confusion they engender in the soul. Perhaps because of this you find it difficult to comprehend what people are actually seeking when they are seeking an experience with God.

I cannot speak for all people, obviously, but I can assure you I am not looking for a whitewashed path back to some "if it feels good do it" lifestyle. I am looking for heart-transformation and a fulfillment of divine promises in terms of fellowship with my Maker. I would venture to guess most others are looking for the same thing or something similar. I am sure your own heart hungers for this, so I would encourage you not to give up hope for it nor pursuit of it. Law and doctrine are important -- I would never state otherwise -- but they cannot satisfy the deep hunger and thirst of the heart.

[Clio]

Erhm...

Yes well...

Ok... I'm so caught in my own pain and hubby's anguish at the moment, that perhaps this is a discussion I had better bow out of.

I can see both sides... Nico's and Olger's points are both well taken, and I have been on both sides. In fact I find myself on both sides now...

The reason I find myself standing on Nico's side is in empathy with Nico's (and other's) pain and seeking. And the answer is relationship not doctrine, although doctrine is important.

The reason I find myself understanding Olger's position is that doctrine is important.

But even more important is the relationship, and if that relationship is intact, with a surrendered heart, mind, and soul, then eventually the doctrine will be embraced according to the teachings of the Spirit.

We often put things backwards teaching doctrine first, somehow hoping that the relationship will arise if the doctrines are accepted.

Pfaugh! It leaves a bad taste in my mouth just saying it.

It is only from a heart full of love, and loving, grateful acceptance of what True Jesus did on the cross, through Blood Covenant inparting to us His Nature, making us joint-heirs with Him to all that is the Father's, sealing it with the pouring out of His Blood in which is Life Eternal, and ratifying it with the traditional gifts of fine raiment (robes of righteousness) and armor (Ephesians 6), that the will of the Father through doctrine can be accepted and embraced.

It takes relationship FIRST, and doctrine second. And in experiencing the relationship, infused with the Bible and the Holy Spirit, comes the objective revealed truth with an understanding of it experienced subjectively where it intersects our lives.

That is not bowing out....

[Nicodema]

I think it's a false dichotomy to begin with. Who says it has to be relationship VERSUS doctrine? I find to really know God requires both.

I probably did not express this well in my verbose post above, but that was the thrust of it. No one (here anyway) is saying that doctrine is some "inconvenience" that causes "divisiveness" and should be scrapped in favor of subjective experiences alone. What causes division and divisiveness are false dichotomies like pitting doctrine and relationship "against" one another in the first place, when they are meant to work together.

HOWEVER ... each has its proper sphere... and proper ATMOsphere...

[Clio]

I agree completely. Which takes us clear 'round to the beginning where just as works without faith is a dead thing, so is faith without works.

It takes both. With the emphasis on relationship, from which comes doctrine/works. Both in their proper sphere and atmosphere.

[olger]

Dear Clio. Thank you for your input. Like you, I appreciate the spiritual intimacy that God offers us.

Dear Nico. Bless you. Thank you for your thoughts. I am reading between the lines here. My post regarding experience is not motivated by the pain of my past decisions, but rather by the quiet observation of the fruit of subjectivity. Eve saw that the tree was good. With you, I agree that the Bible is a book that speaks to the heart. It is possible to analyze & dissect scripture as pure theory, and in the end become more steeped in skepticism. "God keep us from that."

According to Jeremiah, the writing of the Law upon the heart of man, was a distinguishing feature of the New Covenant. We all want to be a part of that intimacy. That relationship will help guard us from the many errors of the culture around us.

The enemy has a goal for our lives: Kill, Steal, and Destroy. Jesus came to give us life and a lot of it.

Unresolved pain in our life can drive a lot of wrong patterns. I am amazed how God can change a life.

kindly,

gcw

John 15:16