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Friendship with God Session 3: Staying in Conversation I. Talking to God: Communication is the building block of all of our relationships, the better the communication, the stronger the relationship. In our relationship with God communication boils down to us being intentional to talk to Him. A. Open Door for Greater Intimacy: Confronted with the reality that God desires deep friendship with us we have an open door to seek greater intimacy with Him. That door is all about our choosing to increase and communication and we want to do all within our power to find ways to strengthen our communication with Jesus. B. Talking to Him All Day Long: Since this is our objective we will spend this last session looking at how we can engage Him more and seek to stay in conversation with Him throughout our days; being intentional to set aside our thoughts and to spend time actually talking to the invisible God all day long. “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus (1Th. 5:16-18).” C. The Promise For Those Who Do: He wants for us to call out to Him and He says that when we do He will hear us and respond. He exhorts us to call on Him, to wait on Him constantly and to listen for Him to speak. The more we cry out the more He will respond to us. “Listen to my instruction and be wise…Blessed are those who listen to me, watching daily at my doors, waiting at my doorway. For those who find me find life and receive favor from the Lord (Pr. 8:33-35)” “Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show you compassion…Blessed are all who wait for him!...How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you...Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it (Is. 30:18-21).” II. He Knows Us As Individuals: God knows us and He interacts with each us just as we are. He created each of our personalities and He loves us, so He reaches low to love us in ways 1 specific to us as individuals so that we can feel that love. His kindness in relating to us as individuals extends also into how He speaks to us tailoring His language to our unique personality. A. Examples of His Tenderness: It is sometimes astonishing to me how He speaks so “us” to each of us. His voice is tailored to each of our personalities and those personalities are so different that most of the time we wouldn’t understand what EH was saying if He spoke to us like He spoke to our friends. 1. Cherish likes animal stuff but Luke likes gun stuff. 2. The Lord shows my friend Pancake pictures. 3. I like food (Taco Bueno exit story). B. What This Means About Him: His willingness to come to our level and speak to us in a personalized way and His willingness to come down to our level are abundant proofs that God so desires conversation with us. As we understand this it should provoke us into greater communion with Him. C. Choosing Communion Instead of Carelessness: Even with the huge hearted God in pursuit of us we still have to choose that communion. The less that we talk to God the less our hearts will engage Him. It is far too easy to become careless in our pursuit of the Lord, to take Him for granted even in the midst of all His blessings and mercy. We need to be careful each day not to allow our minds to be led astray from our devotion to Him. “I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ (2Co. 11:3).” III. The Spirit Within: All believers are called to fellowship with the Holy Spirit; our friendship with Him deepens as we talk often to Him and give Him our heart. We should regularly ask the indwelling Spirit to let us see what He sees and to feel what He feels. We want to engage Him in questions about many different things and topics so we can hear from Him as much as possible. A. Our Spirit is Now Found in His: We want to begin to see God as the indwelling Spirit who lives inside us and who is now intertwined with our spirit (2Co. 3:3). His Spirit lives in us and so it is from within that He speaks to us and leads us. We need to believe that reality if we want to learn to discern His voice. “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth...you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you (Jn. 14:16-17).” “I speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit (Ro. 9:1).” 2 B. Flowing From Our Inner Man: The Spirit lives in us and flows forth from within our heart; sometimes the scripture refers to this as flowing forth from our inner man. We want to turn the attention of our minds to the Spirit that dwells in our spirit. “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive (Jn. 7:37-39).” “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith (Eph. 3:16-17).” C. Fellowship with the Holy Spirit: Friendship with God is about developing a deep fellowship with the Holy Spirit. Paul spoke of this sweet reality as being made readily available for those that would seek Him. “May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all (2Co. 13:14).” “If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit (Php. 2:1)” D. Growing in that Fellowship: Without a growing fellowship with the Holy Spirit we should not expect to hear much from Heaven as we were created to have intimate fellowship with God. This relationship with God has always been about abiding, and God communicating to those who were in that abiding friendship with Him. Paul compares our lives with the Spirit to a constant dance that we are to intentionally engage in. “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit (Ga. 5:25).” E. Two Way Dialogue: True fellowship is a two-way dialogue. The Holy Spirit honors our part in this relationship; He does not force us into dialogue with Him. He does not force conversation or friendship on anyone. If we do not want to talk to Him them we won’t have much dialogue, He doesn’t push Himself on those who aren’t desperate for Him. Love requires a voluntary response, a hungering for nearness to him as He beckons us into a deeper friendship with more continual conversation. IV. The Work of the Spirit: 3 If we will respond to that beckoning however then we will increase our dialogue with Him. The Scripture speaks about the work and ministry of the Holy Spirit in many ways frequently using picturesque terms that describe Him as being a light to us, a fire and a river. When the living Spirit of God is active doing His mysterious work it impacts us in mighty ways that is His reciprocation in that two-way dialogue. These are more than terms, they are metaphors of how the interaction will feel. A. He is Called a Bright Light: The Spirit ministers in us as a bright light that overpowers confusion, accusation and rejection (Ps. 18:28; Is. 9:2; Mt. 4:16; Lk. 11:34; Jn. 3:19, 5:35). As we engage Him we should expect to encounter the Holy Spirit as a bright light. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it (Jn. 1:5).” B. He is a Consuming Fire: He is a consuming fire (Dt. 4:24; Is. 33:14; He. 12:29) that imparts love as it tenderizes us and devours all that gets in the way of love, like bitterness and addictions. There are many examples in the Psalms and elsewhere that tell us that we can feel His presence like a fire within us. “They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us (Lk. 24:32)?” C. He is Like a Flowing River: Remember that passage about the Holy Spirit flowing from within us like a river of living water from John 7? This passage and others describes Him as a flowing river who connects our heart with the free flowing spontaneous activity of God. We should anticipate having encounters with the Holy Spirit that feels like a mighty river flowing from within us. “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” By this he meant the Spirit (Jn. 7:37-39).” V. Responding in the Moment: Many times the Lord wants to speak to us and even through us but in order to do so we have to be willing to respond to His leading in the moment. The conversation is always ongoing and He may at any moment ask us to do things for Him or say things on His behalf to those around us. A. He Confides in Those He Trusts: The Lord loves us immensely, but we must not mistake His love for His trust. To gain His trust we must first prove trustworthy by responding to Him rightly when He gives us instruction and direction. The fear of the Lord is to hear and obey, to keep in mind what God wants and to do it, the Word of God says that the Lord responds to those who fear Him by confiding in them. 4 “Who, then, are those who fear the Lord? He will instruct them in the ways they should choose…The Lord confides in those who fear him; he makes his covenant known to them. My eyes are ever on the Lord (Ps. 25:12-15)” B. When We are Faithful with Little: Gaining that trust is a process; the great principle of God in His dealings with mankind is that He promises to be faithful back to us when we are faithful with even very little. He sees every deed and He takes note and rewards us according to our faithfulness. With this in mind we can trust that as we are faithful to engage the Lord with more intentionality He will respond to us and make available to our spirit greater grace to press in even further. “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things (Mt. 25:21).” C. Willingness to Act: We must be willing to act on the instruction and impressions that the Lord leads. The sweet fellowship that Jesus had with His Father was unbroken because He only said what He heard His Father saying and did what He saw His Father doing. This was complete submission and willingness to do whatever He sensed that His Father wanted. “Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does (Jn. 5:19).” 5