Barriers to Friendship with God

We must view God’s discipline positively as a necessary process in becoming conformed to the image of God once more since Genesis

Introduction
If the Christian life is all about friendship with the holy yet gracious God, then why do not more of His children (including our fellow local church members and families) enjoy His promised abundant life more evidently? By abundantly, as directly or indirectly expressed in the four gospels, Jesus means the life which is able to let go of self-fulfillment in order to have Christ-fulfillment; to decrease our self-will in order to have God’s will in small and big matters in our daily life. Having watched and listened to various types of church members over the last few decades, allow me to share some of my findings in the hope that, together, we will enjoy His life of joy and peace, restfulness and yet purpose in our earthly journey towards Him. This will not be an exhaustive list but enough to set us thinking about God’s abundant life for us. There is much work for a believer to plough on, by God’s enabling, even as Paul reminded us, in Philippians 2:12-13, to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. Much of this work, workable only after God’s Spirit is in us, is to put off our old self and put on the new life of Christ. Some people call this the process of spiritual formation which is not passive or static but active and progressive till we meet Christ face to face.

Colossians 3:1-14 reads…

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly thing. For you died, and your life
is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.

Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unit.

Further, the writer of the Hebrews urged the believers in 12:1-3…

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfector of faith. For the joy set before Him He endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

Hence, we must view God’s discipline positively as a necessary process in becoming conformed to the image of God once more since Genesis 3. In fact, we may ask for it so that we will ultimately be found loyal to this one Friend alone for He is our all in all. There is no other reason for a disciplined Christian life on earth. So the writer to the Hebrews continues in chapter 12…

In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says, My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when He rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines the one He loves…

Therefore, we can truly lift up our feeble arms, strengthen our weak knees and make level paths for our feet, so that the lame may not be disabled but, rather, healed. We must not sell our birthright in God’s family through refusing to summit our wills to God’s will alone, even if through suffering.

Then we can move on from the mountain of fear of meeting with God to the mountain of truth and grace before Him while still on earth. Then we can enjoy His friendship which is abundant life!

I believe that the truth of His grace and friendship will not make us take His statutes lightly; instead, it will encourage us to obey Him as much as we can for the time being, before we are made perfect in Christ, precisely because we realize He loves us so much (John 3:16).

However, we need to know what it is that we need to put to death or put off.

Three Common Barriers to Enjoying God’s Friendship

A. The cataracts in our eyes – wrong theology.
Theology means the knowledge of God or the study concerning the knowledge of God. Everyone has a certain idea of who God is, as everyone is made by Him. But what we are concerned with, as His adopted children, is to know Him as He is not as what we or others think He is. All of us are guilty of wrong thoughts of who the true God really is. Why is it so important that we have a right view or thinking of the one and only true and living God?

It is because He desires that we know Him as He is and what and how we see of God affects our whole life i.e. our view of self, others and our environment i.e. our worldview. For example, if I believe that Our Lord Jesus is my Elder Brother, then my fellow church members are my brothers and sisters of one heavenly Father. As a result, I will be able accept them more willingly whenever we disagree just like we do not stop being brothers and sisters in our earthly temporal family. We do not stop being God’s children just because we like to do things differently. However, if I view God as a harsh and unrealistic Boss who orders me around and does not really care for my welfare, then, when I disagree with my fellow church members, there is not much need to stay around longer than I can tolerate. We are merely colleagues in the same company.

To know God is:
• to receive His grace
• to think His thoughts
• to feel His heart cries and joys
• to know His will and
• to go obey Him in His power.

Nevertheless, knowing God is not an instantaneous event, or a one off event. It is a process needing the renewal of our minds by reading or hearing and meditating on God’s word day by day, little by little, here and there. It is a long journey of putting off our old way of thinking so that God will enable us to put on His new way of thinking and feeling. However, God’s word to us may be distorted in several ways, e.g. through:

*what we inherit from our parents and may pass on to our children
*our social environment, especially those in authority over us during our tender years of childhood e.g. extended families, Sunday School teachers, pastors, the education system, increasingly so, the media
* our mistakes and sins.

All these different ideas of God act like cataracts in the lens of our eyes of faith. If we see God with distorted views, we may still obey Him, but grudgingly, but IF we see God as He has revealed Himself to us in Jesus Christ and in His written word, then we will obey Him out of gratitude and love in response to His great love for us.

B. The Boils in our Lives - Bruises and Weaknesses
All of us have been wronged by someone else at one time or another in our lives. Even being spoilt is a wrong done to us as spoilt kids, if unchanged, become selfish adults who are one of the most difficult to counsel or treat! Most of the hurts that we receive from these wrongs hit us unintentionally. Nevertheless, we feel the injury in us, though often subconsciously, as the actual event could have happened many years ago. But the longer such hurts lie buried in our minds and feelings, the more difficult it is for us to discover them. They act like the pus in the boils that I used to see in my patients. Unless the boils are drained of pus, the strongest of antibiotics may not bring about complete healing in the patient’s body. So, these hurts need to be brought out before trusted friends, if they are the cause of our life problems, so that the pus can be drained from us once and for all through forgiving the person who hurt us, even if he or she has passed away. Why is this so?

The reason is that if we harbour those hurts, they often act as food for fermentation that leads to the sin of resentment. This in turn tends to cause weaknesses in our lives that may lead to other specific sins at the right opportunity e.g. a revengeful attitude, competitiveness, laziness, indulgences in the flesh, overprotection of our children to the detriment of their future families, love of money or neglect of our elderly relatives.

For example, a surgeon with an unhealed cut on the palm of his hand will hurt each time he reaches out for His surgical tools to operate on his patient. Hence, he is unable to treat his patient effectively.

In a similar fashion, he says, if we have unhealed wounds in our lives, try as we may to do God’s work, we are unable to do so fruitfully because each time we reach out to draw on God’s power and love, we hurt because of the conscious or subconscious misconceptions in our minds about who He really is. For example, Is He really forgiving, holy, gracious, gentle, patient, uncondemning, Giver of good gifts, loving and All-Powerful? The key to the putting off of those hurts is forgiveness of the person who hurt us, whether he knows it or not, when the Holy Spirit brings them into our conscious awareness.

Forgiveness is like the therapeutic prick to the boil of our damaged emotions. If we wish to be healed, the good news is that God is on our side. In Isaiah 53:1-6, God says that He sent His Son not only to forgive us our sins but also to take away our weaknesses caused, in one way or another, by the consequences of living in a yet broken world.

C. The Fat in our Arteries – Sin 
Sometimes, certain weaknesses tend to make us sin in certain ways. For example, if I have a phobia (an irrational fear, which is a weakness, not sin) of meeting people for prolonged periods, and the boss keeps asking me to entertain customers, I may first oblige. However, if I have to oblige too often and I get burnout emotionally, I may well blow up on my boss publicly one day over a most trivial matter, without even realising what I am really doing. And if I refuse to apologise, I may be blacklisted. Such sins may be likened to the eating of excess fats ignorantly.

However, there are also many sins that we deliberately commit, likened to the overeating of excessively unhealthy food. This causes the arteries of our physical bodies to clog up in our vital organs causing, for example, a heart attack, stroke or kidney failure. In a similar manner, when the spiritual arteries in our life in Christ are blocked by sins, the love and power of Christ, like oxygen, is hindered from flowing to many parts of our lives. We are thus unable to bear much of His fruit of love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, humility and self-control. We cannot enjoy His promised abundant life as we get entangled in our human relational conflicts.

Whether sins are intentional or unintentional, they are decisions we make or do not make and actions we take or do not take before the righteous and holy God of mercy. Therefore, sins need to be confessed and washed away by the appropriation of His precious blood shed on the cross for us. Once we are born again into God’s family, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is available to us all the time. The obstacle to the availability of God’s grace and strength is not on His side but ours. Unconfessed sins prevent Christ’s life from circulating and bringing power into every part of us to forgive, cleanse, heal and restore us into the image of God again. 

Reflection:
1. Do I want to deepen my friendship with God? The freedom make a personal choice is also a gift from God to be used wisely.
2. What are some barriers in my life that may be hindering me from Him?
3. How may I remove the known barrier(s) so that the joy of the Lord shall be my strength each day, come what may?

By Dr. Lee Bee Teik