In the Old Testament Scriptures, one man stands out as \u201ca friend of God\u201d. Isaiah writes in 41:8, \u201cBut you, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham, my friend\u2026\u201d. 2 Chronicles 20:7 also refers to Abraham as God\u2019s friend. And in the New Testament, James refers to Abraham in 2:23, \u201c…and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, \u201cAbraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness\u201d\u2014and he was called a friend of God.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to the Oxford dictionary, a friend is \u201cA person with whom one has developed a close and informal relationship of mutual trust and intimacy\u201d. Webster has this: \u201ca person who has a strong liking for and trust in another\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why was Abraham called God\u2019s friend? A close relationship! One of my favorite episodes about Abraham that demonstrates this relationship is described in Genesis 18. Three \u201cmen\u201d approached him to announce that Sarah would have a child. One of them was the Lord, according to verse 1. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are times in the Old Testament that God appeared in human form, called a \u201ctheophany\u201d by theologians. The Lord here could have been Jesus, who is \u201cthe image of the invisible God\u201d according to Hebrews 1. The Lord announced to Abraham the impending destruction of Sodom, where Abraham\u2019s nephew Lot and his family lived. Two of the men, probably angels, went on their way to Sodom while the Lord stayed with Abraham.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As they were walking along, God decided to tell Abraham his plans for Sodom\u2019s destruction. Abraham reacts, \u201cFar be it from you to do such a thing\u2014to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?\u201d Then he proceeds to negotiate with God about His plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s hard to imagine, in our religious human mindsets, actually scolding God! But sometimes friends point out things they see in each other that they may not like. \u201cFaithful are the wounds of a friend\u2026\u201d (Prov. 27:6). Abraham\u2019s relationship with God was such that he could honestly express his feelings to Him, even in a way that seems like a rebuke to the creator of the universe!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Lord was not only OK with this, I think he provoked Abraham\u2019s responses. He knew, of course, that Abraham\u2019s real motive was to save his nephew Lot and his family, and He wanted Abraham to intercede for them. In the end, Sodom and some surrounding towns were destroyed, but the Lord rescued Lot and his family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Moses was another friend of God in the Old Testament. Exodus 33:11 says this: \u201cThus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend<\/em>\u2026\u201d Moses spoke with God many times, expressing his deepest feelings, frustrations, and intercessions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n David, while not specifically referred to as God\u2019s friend, was called \u201ca man after God\u2019s own heart\u201d. We can see in his Psalms how he poured out his heart to God in a genuine friendship with the Lord.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Jesus entered this world as a man, He gathered disciples (students) to follow and learn from Him. He ate with them, hung out with them, and lived life with them for three years. On the night before his death, he expressed his friendship with his disciples, recorded in John 15:13-15.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGreater love has no one than this: to lay down one\u2019s life for one\u2019s 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\u2019s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Holy Spirit, sent by Jesus, invites us to hang out with him, to live life with him, and lay down our lives for him, by the Spirit. He wants two-way, honest communication. He makes known his \u201cbusiness\u201d to us, so that we can love and obey him in all things. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And God is not surprised or offended when we pour out our hearts to him, even whining and complaining. It\u2019s part of our relationship, and he already knows exactly how we feel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n God takes our friendship with him seriously. James 4: 4-5, \u201c…do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, \u201cHe yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us\u201d? <\/p>\n\n\n\n As our ultimate friend, God is jealous over us. He wants all of our love, affection, and obedience. He also wants our honesty. As we learn to walk in friendship with him, and \u201close our lives\u201d for him, we gain everything! The abundant life Jesus promised, filled with joy and purpose, in this life and forever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the Old Testament Scriptures, one man stands out as \u201ca friend of God\u201d. Isaiah writes in 41:8, \u201cBut you, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham, my friend\u2026\u201d. 2 Chronicles 20:7 also refers to Abraham as God\u2019s friend. And in the New Testament, James…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3556,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[48],"tags":[24,130],"class_list":["post-2882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-living","tag-abraham","tag-gods-friend"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/searchingscripture.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/Abraham.jpg?fit=300%2C168&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/searchingscripture.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/searchingscripture.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/searchingscripture.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchingscripture.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchingscripture.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2882"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/searchingscripture.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3473,"href":"https:\/\/searchingscripture.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2882\/revisions\/3473"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchingscripture.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/searchingscripture.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchingscripture.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchingscripture.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Jesus<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Forever Friends with God<\/h2>\n\n\n\n