“He offers his friendship to the godly.” – Proverbs 3:32 (NLT)
“Draw close to God, and God will draw close to you.” – James 4:8 (NLT)
Welcome to Day 12 of our Purpose-Driven Life journey! 2 days ago we discovered how to become God’s best friend through constant conversation and continual meditation. Yes, i missed a day, life happened. Today, Rick Warren reveals four more essential keys for developing your friendship with God that will transform your relationship from casual acquaintance to intimate companion.
The Truth That Changes Everything
You are as close to God as you choose to be.
Like any friendship, developing your friendship with God won’t happen by accident. It takes desire, time, and energy. If you want a deeper, more intimate connection with God, you must learn to honestly share your feelings with Him, trust Him when He asks you to do something, learn to care about what He cares about, and desire His friendship more than anything else.
The beautiful truth is that God wants this friendship even more than you do. He’s not playing hard to get or making you jump through religious hoops. He’s eagerly waiting for you to draw near to Him.
Key #1: I Must Choose to Be Honest with God
The first building block of developing your friendship with God is complete honesty—about your faults and your feelings. God doesn’t expect you to be perfect, but He does insist on complete honesty.
Perfect People Need Not Apply
None of God’s friends in the Bible were perfect. If perfection was a requirement for friendship with God, we would never be able to be His friends. Fortunately, because of God’s grace, Jesus is still the “friend of sinners.”
Look at how God’s friends in the Bible were brutally honest about their feelings:
Abraham questioned and challenged God over the destruction of Sodom, pestering God and negotiating Him down from fifty righteous people to only ten.
David made many accusations of unfairness, betrayal, and abandonment, yet God called him “a man after my own heart.”
Jeremiah claimed that God had tricked him, but God didn’t strike him down.
Job vented his bitterness during his ordeal, and in the end, God defended Job for being honest and rebuked Job’s friends for being inauthentic.
God Wants Your Real Feelings
What may appear as audacity, God views as authenticity. God listens to the passionate words of His friends; He is bored with predictable, pious clichés. To be God’s friend, you must be honest with God, sharing your true feelings, not what you think you ought to feel or say.
Breaking Down the Hidden Rift
It’s likely that you need to confess some hidden anger and resentment toward God for certain areas of your life where you have felt cheated or disappointed. Until we mature enough to understand that God uses everything for good in our lives, we harbor resentment toward God over our appearance, background, unanswered prayers, past hurts, and other things we would change if we were God.
Bitterness is the greatest barrier to friendship with God. The antidote is to realize that God always acts in your best interest, even when it’s painful and you don’t understand it. But releasing your resentment and revealing your feelings is the first step to healing.
The Psalms: Your Honesty Manual
God gave us the book of Psalms—a worship manual full of ranting, raving, doubts, fears, resentments, and deep passions combined with thanksgiving, praise, and statements of faith. Every possible emotion is catalogued in the Psalms.
When you read the emotional confessions of David and others, realize this is how God wants you to worship Him—holding back nothing of what you feel. You can pray like David: “I pour out my complaints before him and tell him all my troubles. For I am overwhelmed.”
Key #2: I Must Choose to Obey God in Faith
Every time you trust God’s wisdom and do whatever He says, even when you don’t understand it, you deepen your friendship with God.
Friendship Through Obedience
We don’t normally think of obedience as a characteristic of friendship, but Jesus made it clear that obedience is a condition of intimacy with God. He said, “You are my friends if you do what I command.”
We are friends with God, but we are not His equals. He is our loving leader, and we follow Him. We obey God not out of duty or fear or compulsion, but because we love Him and trust that He knows what is best for us.
The Joy of Loving Obedience
Because we have been forgiven and set free, we obey out of love—and our obedience brings great joy! Jesus said, “I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. When you obey me, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father and remain in his love. I have told you this so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow!”
Small Acts, Great Impact
We are often challenged to do “great things” for God. Actually, God is more pleased when we do small things for Him out of loving obedience. They may be unnoticed by others, but God notices them and considers them acts of worship.
Great opportunities may come once in a lifetime, but small opportunities surround us every day. Even through such simple acts as telling the truth, being kind, and encouraging others, we bring a smile to God’s face.
Consider Jesus: For thirty years before His public ministry, what gave God so much pleasure? The Bible says nothing about those hidden years except for a single phrase: “He went back to Nazareth with them, and lived obediently with them.” Thirty years of pleasing God were summed up in two words: “lived obediently”!
Key #3: I Must Choose to Value What God Values
This is what friends do—they care about what is important to the other person. The more you become God’s friend, the more you will care about the things He cares about, grieve over the things He grieves over, and rejoice over the things that bring pleasure to Him.
Catching God’s Heart
Paul is the best example of this. God’s agenda was his agenda, and God’s passion was his: “The thing that has me so upset is that I care about you so much—this is the passion of God burning inside me!”
David felt the same way: “Passion for your house burns within me, so those who insult you are also insulting me.”
What Matters Most to God
What does God care about most? The redemption of His people. He wants all His lost children found! That’s the whole reason Jesus came to earth. The dearest thing to the heart of God is the death of His Son. The second dearest thing is when His children share that news with others.
To be a friend of God, you must care about all the people around you whom God cares about. Friends of God tell their friends about God.
This doesn’t mean you need to become a professional evangelist, but it does mean that as you grow closer to God, you’ll naturally want others to experience the same joy and relationship you’ve found.
Key #4: I Must Desire Friendship with God More Than Anything Else
The Psalms are filled with examples of this desire. David passionately desired to know God above all else; he used words like longing, yearning, thirsting, hungering. He craved God.
Passionate Pursuit
David said, “The thing I seek most of all is the privilege of meditating in his Temple, living in his presence every day of my life, delighting in his incomparable perfections and glory.” In another psalm he declared, “Your love means more than life to me.”
Jacob’s passion for God’s blessing was so intense that he wrestled all night with God, saying, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” The amazing part? God, who is all-powerful, let Jacob win! God isn’t offended when we “wrestle” with Him—wrestling requires personal contact and brings us close to Him.
Making It Your Priority
Paul was passionate for friendship with God. Nothing mattered more; it was the first priority, total focus, and ultimate goal of his life. This is why God used Paul in such a great way.
The truth is, you are as close to God as you choose to be. Intimate friendship with God is a choice, not an accident. You must intentionally seek it.
When You’ve Lost Your Passion
You may have been passionate about God in the past but you’ve lost that desire. That was the problem of the Christians in Ephesus—they had left their first love. They did all the right things, but out of duty, not love.
Pain as God’s Megaphone
If you’ve just been going through the motions spiritually, don’t be surprised when God allows pain in your life. Pain is the fuel of passion—it energizes us with an intensity to change that we don’t normally possess. C.S. Lewis said, “Pain is God’s megaphone.” It is God’s way of arousing us from spiritual lethargy.
Your problems are not punishment; they are wake-up calls from a loving God. God is not mad at you; He’s mad about you, and He will do whatever it takes to bring you back into fellowship with Him.
Reigniting the Flame
But there’s an easier way to reignite your passion for God: Start asking God to give it to you, and keep asking until you have it. Pray this throughout your day: “Dear Jesus, more than anything else, I want to get to know you intimately.”
God told the captives in Babylon, “When you get serious about finding me and want it more than anything else, I’ll make sure you won’t be disappointed.”
Your Most Important Relationship
There is nothing, absolutely nothing, more important than developing your friendship with God. It’s a relationship that will last forever. Paul told Timothy, “Some of these people have missed the most important thing in life – they don’t know God.”
Have you been missing out on the most important thing in life? You can do something about it starting now. Remember, it’s your choice. You are as close to God as you choose to be.
Practical Steps for This Week
Start with Honesty: This week, practice radical honesty with God. Tell Him exactly how you feel about your circumstances, your struggles, your fears, and your joys. Don’t edit yourself—He can handle your raw emotions.
Practice Small Obedience: Look for small ways to obey God each day. It might be choosing kindness when you’re irritated, being honest in a difficult situation, or helping someone in need.
Align Your Values: Ask God to show you what matters to Him. Start paying attention to what breaks His heart and what brings Him joy. Let your priorities begin to reflect His priorities.
Pursue with Passion: Make developing your friendship with God your number one priority. Schedule time for Him, seek Him throughout your day, and ask Him to increase your hunger for His presence.
Day 12 Reflection Questions:
Point to Ponder: I’m as close to God as I choose to be.
Verse to Remember: “Draw close to God, and God will draw close to you.” – James 4:8a (NLT)
Question to Consider: What practical choices will I make today in order to grow closer to God?
Your Friendship Challenge:
Choose one of the four keys to focus on this week:
- Honesty – Write God a completely honest letter about your current feelings and circumstances
- Obedience – Identify one area where you know God is asking you to obey and take a step forward
- Values – Research one cause or issue that’s close to God’s heart and find a way to get involved
- Passion – Commit to praying daily for God to increase your desire for Him
At the end of each day this week, rate your friendship with God on a scale of 1-10 and note what helped you feel closer to Him.
Tomorrow’s Preview:
Having explored how to develop deep friendship with God, tomorrow we’ll discover what it means to worship God with your life and how every aspect of your daily routine can become an act of worship that brings Him pleasure.
Which of these four keys resonates most with you right now? What’s one specific way you can begin developing your friendship with God starting today? Share your thoughts below as we continue this journey of discovering the incredible relationship God wants to have with each of us.
Learn more about Day 12 on Purpose Driven.
John Thole is the voice behind Beyond Salvation, a blog that captures the highs and lows of life through faith, laughter, and honest reflection. With a passion for storytelling, technology, and spiritual growth, he creates content that resonates with seekers, believers, and anyone navigating life’s journey. Whether sharing personal insights, devotionals, or thought-provoking discussions, John aims to inspire, uplift, and spark meaningful conversations.
