Who is a Friend of God?

I love the song "I am a Friend of God" by Israel Houghton.


It is uplifting and encouraging, but I wonder if that and many praise songs like it don't send the wrong message to people. I read the Book of Malachi again this morning, and it always, always gets me. But today verse 17 of Malachi 2 really struck me:

Malachi 2:17 (NKJV) You have wearied the Lord with your words; Yet you say, "In what way have we wearied Him?" In that you say, "Everyone who does evil Is good in the sight of the Lord, And He delights in them," Or, "Where is the God of justice?"

I like the way the Message translation puts it:

Malachi 2:17 (MSG) You make God tired with all your talk. "How do we tire him out?" you ask. By saying, "God loves sinners and sin alike. God loves all." And also by saying, "Judgment? God's too nice to judge."

God is saying He gets wearied by all of our songs and talking that everything is OK to Him, after all He loves us just the way we are. We even think that He does not judge, but He forgives us and loves us. After all, He made us, so He must understand.

I believe many Christians and psuedo-Christians believe like the song says that we are friends of God, no matter what we do. We believe that God accepts us just the way we are, that He is kind and loves us in spite of our failures and sin.

The truth is no one is a friend of God unless they are in His Son, Jesus Christ. We are as filthy rags, we are enemies of God, we have His wrath abiding on us. Only by our Faith in what Jesus did for us in His death and Resurrection, do we have God's forgiveness and acceptance. As Ephesians 1:6 says: "We are ACCEPTED IN THE BELOVED"

Christ satisfied all the demands of the Law for man's righteousness before God.

Did God call His people (the wandering Israelites) His 'friends'? NO WAY! He called them murmurers and complainers. His wrath came upon them when they complained of His Ways and Provisions. They had no faith in God and therefore never entered into God's rest. On one occasion God's wrath upon them was such that God sent fiery serpents to kill them.

Numbers 21:6-8 (NKJV) So the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and many of the people of Israel died. Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, "We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord that He take away the serpents from us." So Moses prayed for the people. Then the Lord said to Moses, "Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live."

Only by gazing upon the bronze serpent hoisted upon the cross were they spared from death at the bite of fiery serpents. We Christians can sing praise songs that talk about God's mercy and goodness to us, but we need to understand that that goodness extends to us on the behalf of Jesus Christ, and only because we are IN HIM.

Abraham was called a Friend of God because the Scriptures describe him as a man of Faith, and his Faith in God was reckoned as righteousness. "And he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness." Gen 15:6. Hebrews 11 elaborates further on Abraham's faith, revealing that even when severely tested by God, he was by faith willing to offer up his own son:"By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, "In Isaac your seed shall be called," (Hebrews 11:17-18)

If we BY FAITH are willing to offer up our own life to God, and exchange it for the life of His only begotten Son, then we truly become the "Friend of God", because we are then and only then 'accepted in the beloved'. As Isaac was the 'son of promise', our faith in Christ makes Him the 'son of promise' to us, who redeems us from sin and places us as Trophies of God's Grace.