I Have Called You Friends
By Gary Peters
If you are like me, you like to read or hear
people tell about how God
reached
into their life in a dramatic way and saved their
life or saved their soul
or healed them. I always enjoy reading about the
Apostle Paul on the
road to
Damascus, and how Jesus met him and talked to him
and turned his life
around. But
when I look at my own life, there is not a
dramatic turning point.
There is God
everywhere I look, at the beginning, in the
middle, and I know that he
will be at
the end as wel I.
I imagine that many Christians have a story
similar to mine: I grew up in
the church, my parents were good people who loved
the Lord and loved
me and did
their best to guide me on the path of life. They
made their mistakes,
and so did
I, but generally life was good. I always knew that
God created the
world, that
Jesus died for me, and that I could come to God at
any time in prayer.
I had good
pastors and teachers, and found it easy to
memorize Bible verses and
facts about
Christianity. I considered becoming a pastor
myself because I thought
it would
help me remain close to God.
Actually, I wasn''t close to God. I wanted to be,
but there were some
things
that I needed to learn and do first. It wasn''t
until I was in college
that I
learned that God wants to be involved in our daily
struggles and
decisions. I had
thought of him as a sort of long distance advisor
whom I could consult
if I had a
very big crisis, but not as someone who wanted to
advise me about
daily details
and choices. But one day God broke through with
that insight: that no
part of my
life is too small or too hard for him. Later on I
learned that he not
only wants
to be involved, but that he also wants to be in
control, that he wants
to be Lord
of my life. I can''t tell you what day I gave my
heart to Jesus, but I
know that
since I invited him to live in me and to be Lord
of my life, he has
done just
that.
I didn''t have many friends as a young person. I
was sby and socially
awkward, and maybe I still am, but I do have one
friend who accepts me
if I have
little or even nothing at all to say, and that is
my Lord Jesus. Some
people seem
to be able to pray without ceasing, but I have
always struggled to
pray. I know
that he already knows what I am thinking and what
I want and what I
need. But I
do spend a lot of time thinking in his presence,
wondering what he
thinks about
some problem, or what would he like to do to help
certain people, and
how I can
help to accomplish what he wants done in this
world. I can''t say that
God has
ever spoken to me in a voice that I could hear,
but he certainly has
made his
thoughts known to me, and I delight to get those
glimpses into his
ways. Of
course, most of those glimpses of him come through
his word. I have
tried for
about 25 years now to read some in the Bible every
day, and that is
the main way
he speaks his thoughts to me. I have recently
become involved in Bible
Study
Fellowship, and recommend it as one way to
deliberately study the
Bible to come to
know God better. I think most Christians want to
study the Bible and
know their
Lord better, but they need the discipline of a
study or program to
help them keep
with it.
God has blessed me with a wonderful wife and son,
and he helps me in my
daily struggles of running a business, being a
husband and father and
son and
church member and citizen and all of the other
activities that fill
our days of
this life. I have weaknesses and problems that I
just can''t seem to
get past, and
still God is there. I suffer defeats and grief in
life, and still God
is there.
I also have good days and wonderful times, and I
thank him for those,
but I
especially thank Jesus for being my friend. In
John 15 Jesus says:
"You are my
friends if you do what I command you. No longer do
I call you
servants, for the
servant does not know what his master is doing;
but I have called you
friends, for
all that I have heard from my Father I have made
known to you." What a
marvelous
opportunity we have, to be friends of the creator
of the universe. What an
awesome God we have, who wants to be our friend!
"What a friend we have in
Jesus."
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