When you initially enter into a relationship with God, you’re going to experience a complete 180 from the life you once knew. There’s going to be things in your life He asks you to give up. You aren’t confident in His character yet, but He’s a gentleman. He will have plenty of patience with you as you try to figure out what a “relationship” with God looks like. You’re not quite sure how to trust Him with big things. You may have heard that He’s faithful and good, but you have yet to experience it for yourself.
As you continue to follow Him, He proves Himself true to you. You still fight for your own way sometimes, but you’re beginning to see that He knows best and that His ways are always good. At this stage, you start to experience the constancy of God’s character and that strengthens a key element within any relationship: trust.
As you come closer and closer into relationship with God, conforming your desires to his desires, wanting the things he wants, loving the things he loves, you start a beautiful new chapter of your relationship with Him: partnership.
Being led by the Spirit is only the beginning of your new life with Him, but being friends with the Spirit shows maturity. We begin as slaves of righteousness – being led by the Spirit and learning His ways- but slaves only know what to do, but they don’t know why they do it. The highest call for a slave is just to do what they’re told. That’s not God’s final plan for you. He wants friends, and friends get to do things together.
“No longer do I call you slaves, for a slave does not know what his master is doing.” John 15:15
“If you keep my commandments, then you’re My friend.” John 15:14
One of the greatest revelations I’ve ever faced is knowing that God doesn’t just love me, He actually likes me.
The King of the Universe, the Prince of Peace, the Bridegroom, He enjoys me! When I finally got that through my head, I allowed myself to go much deeper in my relationship with Him. I felt no need to restrain my love. In fact, He once told me that I could love Him as much as I want, because He would always love me more.
A few weeks ago, we had a squad meeting at the church here in Bulacan to discuss our plans for the upcoming month. I felt the ever-so-familiar prompting of the Holy Spirit to listen carefully. As the meeting progressed, I felt a stirring in my heart to create a discernment team – a team uniquely devoted to seek the heart of God and His plans for us as a squad while here in the Philippines. After the meeting, I presented the idea to the squadleaders, and they gave me a big thumbs up.
We went hard after God through prayer and worship as a discernment team. I challenged them to ask God for big things. Y-Squad was presented with an opportunity to share the gospel in the city plaza through skits and dramas. We just needed permission to rent the plaza. So we prayed – and God answered! The plaza was quickly booked, and the squad began preparing for the Multicultural Performance Festival.
I challenged the team to get away for at least 30min to thank God for giving us the plaza and to hear what His heart was for them uniquely. I found a quiet, concrete alleyway in the church compound that I snuck away to with my squadmate, Aubrey. We prayed together then put in our earbuds. For the first 5 min, I was overwhelmed with gratefulness and anticipation for what the Lord was doing and was going to do. I began to ask Him what my role was specifically. I could do Zumba. I love dancing. Or anything to do with adorable squinty-eyed babies! He then began to show me faces within Y-squad, and my eyes immediately filled with tears. God, more than anything, I want to see them come alive.
And boy did I see that happen.
I cannot even begin to describe how proud I am of this squad. They worked so incredibly hard to prepare for this performance, and they rocked it. Many were involved in the dramas, and a few squadmates bravely volunteered to share their testimonies. I pretty much hooked up the music, made sure there was structure in place, and prayed. Whether on stage or behind the scenes, we were exactly where He wanted us to be.
At the end of the night, I heard God say something to me that I’ve never heard Him say before.
“I don’t want you to do things for Me, I want you to do things with me. Thank you for being My friend.”
I spent the last 4 hours on the concrete, sanctuary floor with select squadmates just thanking God for using us so mightily. We took the time to seek out His plan, jumped into it with willing and obedient hearts, and it was exceedingly, abundantly more than we imagined it to be.
30 first-time salvation decisions tonight!!
What an honor and a privilege to partner with God! He doesn’t want a slave, He wants a Bride. Guys, He wants friends. He wants to do the thing with you! Step into friendship with Him. It’s pretty great 🙂
