A personal friendship with God

Have you ever taken the opportunity to think about God as your friend and what friendship with God means? One of the most well-known biblical verses about friendship with Christ is found in John 15:13-15, wherein Jesus says, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s 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.”

Now that’s big deal! We should consider it a privilege to know that God would consider those of us who are obedient to His Word—including those of us under marriage covenant—His friends. We certainly don’t deserve it. Who are we that the Creator of heaven and earth, the Alpha and the Omega, would desire a friendship with us? It’s mind-blowing! He may call us His friends, but do we respect Him as our friend?

Nothing should nurture our intimate time with God more than sitting at His feet, as Mary did (Luke 10:38-42). When Martha complained about Mary sitting and listening to Jesus rather than busying herself with chores, Jesus’ reply to Martha was that Mary desired that which was good. The closer we are to God, the more intimate we are with Him. The more intimate we are with Him, the stronger we become in our everyday lives, and that includes our marriage bonds.

To have a marriage that is fortified with a protection that only God can provide, we must be friends with Him. Many Christians want to be recognized as intercessors for God, or leaders for God, but we can’t effectively be any of those things without first learning how to be a friend of God. Our spiritual growth, our ability to love like He says love, our ability to forgive like He says forgive—it all starts with us being God’s friend. That bond with Christ is the starting point of any covenant that desires to experience extraordinary love, joy and peace. It takes three to make an exceptional marriage: God, a husband and a wife. And a friendship with God must precede friendship with your spouse.

Just as true ordinary friends should listen thoughtfully to what each other is saying, so we, too, must do to develop our friendship with Christ. We must pay close attention to what He reveals to us, whether it pertains to our marriage, raising our children, even how we treat our neighbors. Nothing within our relationships with other should be out of alignment with the Bible. When we read the principles of God’s Word, what do we see? Do we see it as boring rules to follow, or do we delight in His wise instructions to us?

As covenant couples, God has a way of admonishing us when we aren’t living according to His standards for marriage. He does that because He loves us and desires couples to grow as one in spiritual maturity.

Do we trust the reprimands of our friend—our Heavenly Father—who always knows what’s best for us and our relationship? Proverbs 21:2 says, “Every way of a man is right in his own eyes: but the LORD pondereth the hearts.” Friendship with the Lord is made possible because of Christ. Christ Himself said we are His friends now through His finished and sufficient work (John 15). As friends or God and no longer enemies of the Cross, we enjoy union with Christ and a spiritual union with Him. Such a friendship with our Lord and Savior is fundamental to a wholesome friendship with our spouse.

If we are not enjoying our friendship with God, we will not genuinely enjoy being friends with others, which means, we will also have little to no chance of maintaining healthy friendships with our spouse. Husband-and-wife friendships are not difficult. In fact, our spouse should be our dearest and closest friend. There should be no other human that we trust or love more than our spouse. Jesus tells us to love the Lord and love one another, especially our neighbor, as ourselves. If we love God, we will love our neighbor. Our neighbor is the “bor” (or body) that is “neigh” (or nearest) to us. This is our spouse.

Drs. Michael & Kendra Holmes are the pastors of Deliverance Revival Church in Warner Robins, Ga., the founders of Royalty Relationship Coaching, LLC, the authors of the 31-day devotional, “Cross-Fire: Igniting Passionate, Purposeful, and Powerful Relationships” and the founders of the faith-based newspaper, The Royal Trumpet. W.A.R. is an acronym for “We Are Royalty,” ™ the official slogan of Royalty Relationship Coaching, LLC. Visit the website at www.RoyaltyRelationshipCoaching.com.

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