PDL Lesson 12: Further Developing Your Relationship with God

PDL Lesson 12 Developing Your Friendship with God

There are 6 areas of importance when developing your friendship with God. We looked at two of them in lesson 11. To be God’s friend we need to spend time speaking to him in prayer and thoughts. We also need to get to know him better by reading and meditating on his word, the bible.

How close a relationship we have with God is entirely up to us. We must work at developing it. It won’t happen by accident.

Four Things we must do to develop our Relationship with God:

Be Honest with God.
Trust Him.
Care what God cares about.
Desire His Friendship more than anything else.

Honesty is the best Policy! The first building block of a deeper relationship is complete honesty. We don’t have to be perfect. We’re going to make mistakes, but God wants us to be Honest with Him in everything we do. We can tell Him when we’re angry, hurt, confused, sad, or happy. It is important that we hold nothing back from Him of what we feel. In fact there is a book in the bible devoted entirely to this type of authentic communication with God. It’s called the Psalms.

Obey in Faith! We don’t often think of obedience as being an ingredient in friendship, but it is an ingredient in a friendship with God. John 15:14 says: You are my friends if you do what I command… True friendship isn’t passive. It Acts! When Jesus asks us to love others, help the needy, share our resources, keep our lives clean, offer forgiveness, bring others to Him, love motivates us to obey immediately.

Value what God Values! Friends care about their friends care about. They share like interests. The more you start to care about God the more you’ll share his interests. He cares most about redeeming people. That’s’ why Jesus came to earth as a man. To save us. God values us telling others about Him.

We must desire friendship with God more than anything else! The Apostle Paul lived his life this way. Here is a quote from Philippians 3:10… My determined purpose is that I might know Him, that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of HIS PERSON more strongly and more clearly…

Paul was passionate about God. What is your passion…? Dr Warren says that Pain is the fuel of passion. It energizes us with an intensity to change that we normally don’t possess. CS Lewis put it this way: Pain is God’s megaphone. It’s God’s way of arousing us from spiritual lethargy.

Coach Sam’s Personal Study Notes: God has definitely used pain in my life to grab my attention. Broken relationships, Death, difficult job situations…. I feel that all these experiences have driven me to seek a closer relationship with God.

Verse to remember from Chapter 12: Draw close to God and he will draw close to You. James 4:8

Dear Heavenly Father,

Lord, Thank You for being my friend. I pray this is a friendship that will continually deepen over time. Father, help me draw closer to you. To always seek the truth and the light. Help me to trust in You and dispel all doubt and lack of faith. I truly desire a deep, close friendship with You, Lord.

I pray for Your blessings, Lord. On Myself, and my family. Father I pray for blessings on my friends who are doing this study with me. Lord, I just intercede on their behalf, today.

I give this day to you, sweet Lord and Savior. I love you, Lord. And in Jesus’ name I pray, AMEN.