Day 2 – Are You a Friend of God? | Beyond Feelings: Learning God’s Language of Love

If I were to ask, are you a friend of God, I am pretty sure that everyone here would say yes, or raise your hands, without hesitation. Correct?

Everyone wants to be called “a friend of God.” It sounds intimate, so personal, so comforting, so right. 

But when Jesus used those words in John 15:14–15 (NKJV), He attached a condition: “You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.”

So friendship with God isn’t based on how we feel; it’s grounded in how we live. Obedience is love in motion. Words are easy, but faithfulness is proven when obedience costs us something. It is so easy, for some, to say I love you. 

Of course many of us were not raised hearing our parents say I love you so in that case it may be like pulling teeth to get us to say that. Thank God though many of us grew in love and learnt to say it freely.

1 Samuel 15:22 (NLT) says, “What is more pleasing to the Lord: your burnt offerings and sacrifices or your obedience to His voice? Listen! Obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission is better than offering the fat of rams.”

So what do we understand here, Family? It is that true love listens to God even when emotions resist.

Jesus’ friendship with the Father was marked by full surrender. 

In John 5:19 (NLT), He said, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by Himself. He does only what He sees the Father doing.”

Friendship with God looks like that—trust so deep that you move when He moves, even when you don’t understand. 

And we do that with our earthly friends, so that’s easy to understand but strangely enough when it comes to God too often we have a lot of questions and we hesitate a lot.

So we need some encouragement.

Let’s look at Abraham, who Scripture calls “the friend of God.” James 2:23 (NKJV) says, “And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.’ And he was called the friend of God.”

Abraham’s friendship wasn’t declared—it was demonstrated when he obeyed God’s command to leave his homeland (Genesis 12:1–4) and later, when he was willing to offer Isaac (Genesis 22:2–3).

Friendship with God is not a title; it’s a lifestyle of trust and surrender. Don’t tell me you’re my friend, show me. Hallelujah. Friendship with God means we trust His character even when His instructions stretch us to the core.

Jesus tells us in John 15:16 (NLT), “You didn’t choose Me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit.” 

That means God handpicked us for relationship and purpose. Real friendship with God bears fruit—it transforms how we think, speak, and treat others. Help me Holy Spirit.

Galatians 5:22–23 (NKJV) lists those fruits: “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” 

If we claim to be His friends, those traits should be visible in how we respond to both blessings and challenges.

Sometimes we call God “Friend,” yet treat Him like a visitor—welcoming Him in on Sabbaths or Sundays, then shutting the door during the week. We do this to our earthly friends too, it’s a shame. So when we do that to folks we say we love whom we can see, no wonder we tend to forget about truly loving God whom we cannot see.

But we are reminded today that friendship thrives in consistency. “Abide in Me,” Jesus said in John 15:4 (NKJV), “and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.”

Friendship with God also involves honesty. 

In human relationships, friends can tell each other the truth in love. Don’t lie to me to save me or cover me. Don’t lie to me to make yourself or somebody else look good. Stop lying, period.

God desires truthfulness, honesty. 

Proverbs 27:6 (NKJV) says, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.” 

God corrects those He loves (Hebrews 12:6), not to punish but to purify. When we allow His Word to challenge us, that’s a sign of real intimacy.

Now, think about how Jesus loved His disciples. He washed their feet (John 13:14–15), prayed for them (John 17:9), and called them “friends” even knowing one would betray Him. 

That’s how God loves us—He doesn’t withdraw friendship when we fail. Instead, He keeps inviting us back into fellowship through repentance. Some of us, all of us, can learn that lesson in our daily relationships.

1 John 1:7 (NKJV) says, “If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.”

So, the question today isn’t whether God loves us—He clearly does. The question is: are we loving Him back in the way He defines love? 

Friendship with God is not lip service; it’s living service. It means saying, “Lord, even when I don’t feel like it, I choose to follow You.”

Family, love matures into friendship when obedience replaces excuses, when faith replaces fear, and when trust replaces timing.

As we grow in love, may our lives echo what Jesus said in John 15:13 (NKJV): “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.”

That’s what it means to be a friend of God — not a fan, not an admirer, not a supporter, but someone willing to lay down feelings for faithfulness.