Friends of God

Relationships with God are interesting, to say the least. At one point, God told Miriam that He would speak to Moses directly, but that He would only speak to most prophets through their dreams. To be honest, not many people have had that kind of relationship with God. God spoke to Abraham directly, long before Moses. God also spoke to Balaam directly (and he wasn’t even a Jew). There were, a lot of faithful men in the Bible to whom God never spoke to, even in a dream. I’m sure God had His purpose for maintaining a relationship with Balaam, though.

In the New Testament, we find that God spoke to a few individuals here and there, and not all of them because they were good Christian people. God talked to Saul the Pharisee on the road to Damascus, evidently because Saul thought he had a relationship with God, and God particularly wanted Saul to have such a relationship, and because God had a laundry list of things for Saul to do as a Christian. Interestingly enough, God told Saul to go on to Damascus, to see what he needed to do, and then God told Ananias to go meet with Saul. In fact, God told Ananias that He had already told Saul that Ananias was coming. Peter, on the other hand, seems to have been one that God would only speak to in a dream.

Jesus said that we are His friends if we do whatsoever He commands us to do. Of course, Jesus understands that we are human, and we will never be able to do everything that we are commanded. Keep in mind, though, that He can see what’s in your heart, so He knows whether you are honestly giving Him your best. He knows whether we are His friends or not. Jesus also said that He laid down His life for His friends.

It’s clear that we should want to be friends with God. Some among us are happy to be just servants of God. Certainly, you won’t hear Him say the words, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant” unless you have actually been a good and faithful servant. Jesus isn’t going to lie to you and call you a servant if you haven’t been one. More importantly, though, you shouldn’t want to be just a servant of God, you should want to be a friend of God. Why settle for anything less?

When the Prodigal Son came to his senses, he realized that he would be better off as a servant in his Father’s household than feeding swine (and feeling jealous of how much food the pigs got). He knew that his Father was a just individual, and took care of His servants, whereas whoever he was working for cared more about the pigs than the servants. The prodigal didn’t feel right even asking to be let back into the family again, he just hoped that his Father still cared enough for him to put him on the payroll; he would have been happy just to be a servant in the house where he grew up. The Father wouldn’t have it, though; this was His son, who was back from the dead. We have the Spirit of adoption, God wants us to be His servants, but He also wants us to be His friends, and, more than that, He wants us to be His children.

The Love of God

I was listening to the radio this past weekend, and they were talking about “love languages.” They were talking in terms of married couples, that is, husband and wife, but it occurs to me that the church is the bride of Christ, so, to some extent, this sort of thing applies to all of us. Of course, it is important that we love the Lord, but we are also commanded to love one another.
All of us have needs, but we have different ways that we treat our needs. Some people advertise their needs to anyone who will listen, while others of us try to hide our needs. I don’t think that whining is a Christian virtue, but, then again, I don’t think that one should expect God to meet every need just through prayer. Somewhere in between, there is a balance. Don’t misunderstand me, sometimes God will send someone to you because you are in need and you have prayed about it. Sometimes, though, once we have prayed, we need to allow ourselves to be led to the person that God wants to have help us. The old adage is, “God helps those who help themselves.” Sometimes it isn’t enough to pray, one has to be willing to step out in faith, although sometimes praying is all one can do. Remember that God sent Philip to the Ethiopian eunuch, and He sent Ananias to Saul, but He also sent Jairus and the woman with the issue of blood to Jesus.
The flip side of this is that we, as Christians, need to be alert, aware, and prayerful of the needs of others. Just because someone voices a need, it doesn’t necessarily follow that God wants us to tend to that need; He may have a different plan than the one that seems obvious. On the other hand, just because someone doesn’t ask for our help (or even specifically says that they don’t want our help), it doesn’t necessarily follow that they don’t need it (word of caution, though, if you try to help someone who has specifically asked you not to help, make sure that it’s of God, or you’re just going to make a mess). We should have the kind of love for people that God has; to see the needs, and to be ready and able to do what’s best for those around us.
Some years ago, Twila Paris came out with a song (and an album) called, “Cry For the Desert.” At first, the title didn’t make sense to me, but after I got it home, and read through the written text that came with it, I came to realize that ‘desert’ just fits in song lyrics better than, ‘people lost in the wilderness of sin,’ which is what the song is really about. If we love each other, and we love those outside the faith, then we will have compassion for them as well. That involves seeing people the way that Jesus sees them, which isn’t always easy for us to do. More recently, Brandon Heath has come out with a song that says very much the same thing called, “Give Me Your Eyes.”

Tough Choices

In the Book of Acts, it tells us that Saul the Pharisee was out rounding up Christians to be imprisoned or killed, when God knocked him down and blinded him. Realizing that only God could do that to him, but not understanding why God would (he was, after all, a loyal Pharisee, doing what he believed God wanted him to do), he cried out to God. Saul quickly learned that he was very much on the wrong path, but, God told him that He would send a man named Ananias to set Saul straight. Then, the Bible tells us, God told Ananias to go to Judas' house to share with Saul (not Judas Iscariot, of course, but that can't have been encouraging to Ananias). Ananias reacted pretty much the way most of us would: "Um, God? I don't know if this guy Saul has been operating behind your back, but he's been running around throwing Christians into jail, and having us killed... Wouldn't you rather that I go to Nineveh?" Ananias went to Judas' house expecting, at the very least, a tough sell. But he knew that God had spoken to his heart, and he knew what he had to do (and he wasn't sure that he wouldn't wind up in the belly of a whale if he tried to run away from it). He had every reason to believe that he was going to wind up in prison if he did what God was telling him to do, but he made up his mind that he'd rather be a Joseph than a Jonah. Some part of his mind must have contemplated an escape, even knowing that there is no escape from God.

When Ananias got to Judas' house, though, Saul was blind and badly shaken (I guess losing your eyesight can do that to you). Saul knew that God had sent Ananias, and was ready to listen to whatever Ananias said. I imagine that if Ananias had told Saul to sign over all his worldly possessions and cut off his right arm, Saul would have done it gladly. Ananias preached the gospel to Saul, and Saul accepted it. After that, Saul was known as Paul.

The point is that Ananias had to have felt that he was in a no-win situation. He chose to do the right thing, because he trusted in God, but he didn't see the big picture, and he didn't see the good that would come from what he had been asked to do (yes, God told him that Saul was a 'chosen vessel,' but that doesn't really tell the story of what Apostle Paul went on to do). It can't have been easy for him to go to meet with Saul. Once he got there, everything went smoothly, but he didn't know that it would until he got there. Yes, I understand that the passage makes it sounds like he just waltzed in, placed his hands on Saul, said, "Jesus sent me here to heal you and send you out to preach the gospel!" Think about that for minute. How many people do you know with that kind of faith? Now, I will grant you, it may very well be that Ananias psyched himself up to the point where he was able to appear to be completely unconcerned, but, human nature being what it is, I'll bet that he was still shaking on the inside.

God honored Ananias' faith, and He wants to honor our faith, but sometimes we are going to have to make some tough choices.