From June 7,2017:
Not all of what we do at Titus 2 happens in the classroom. In fact, much of it happens in the day to day coming and going and doing of life. One Sunday as we traveled to church, a young lady said to me, “Being a friend of Jesus is hard. No wonder so few are called God’s friend.” My response was that there really are quite a few who were God’s friends…..Moses, David, Job, Joseph, Elijah, Joshua, Noah, Abraham, Esther, Mary Magdalene, John, Paul, and many more. They are characterized by their obedience to God. It doesn’t mean they never made mistakes, never lacked understanding, or that they didn’t have difficulty at times. It does mean that they knew God and knew that God knew them and that, when they displeased God, they knew it and they sought God out and repented. We sing, “I am a friend of God. He calls me friend.” Friendship with God…..a close, personally satisfying relationship of trust ….it can be ours. “What a Friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear. What a privilege to carry, everything to him in prayer.” Have you talked with your Friend this morning?
From 6/7/17 Seedbed’s Daily Devotional by J.D. Walt:
“It’s no small thing; becoming the kind of person who can be a friend of Jesus….. this is what discipleship is all about—embracing our adoption as sons and daughters and growing to trust in God as good Father; being trained to imitate Jesus in the humble way of a servant and learning to walk in friendship with Jesus in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.
This is the outline of what I’m calling the three-fold movement of discipleship to Jesus. It is as comprehensive as it is simple, and yet it it inspires a million questions—like these:
17 At this, some of his disciples said to one another, “What does he mean by saying, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me,’ and ‘Because I am going to the Father’?”
This is what the disciples of Jesus do. They put down pretense, confess their ignorance and ask one another questions in order to grow in their faith and understanding.”
Find your tribe or clan or fellow disciples. Ask one another questions. Grow in friendship together as you grow in friendship with Jesus. There are those who call themselves disciples. but distance themselves from others and pretend they have all the answers and that those who ask questions are hopelessly stupid wanna-be disciples. Jesus accepted their lack of understanding, their questions, their human condition…….and led them into understanding in God’s timing and according to God’s purpose for their lives.