Beginning a Friendship with God
How do we get a friendship with God that will ‘get more yes answers’?
First, we must recognize something about ourselves that is very negative.
We must realize that we are ‘sinners’.
We must realize that the core of our person is messed-up.
This messed-up nature naturally offends God.
Lying is one example of a thing that greatly offends the God of Truth, but it is not the only example.
Because we have offended Him, God is angry with us.
However, because He
1) Loves us very much, and
2) Knows that we are powerless to overcome this sinful nature by our own power and
3) To show us that He does what is right
God developed a plan so that our sins may be forgiven, expunged, and forgotten.
God the Father, sent Jesus, His only begotten Son, to bear the punishment for all of our sins.
In addition to placing upon Jesus the punishment for what we do, God calls us to ‘repent’.
God tells us to turn away from wanting to continue offending God.
God also tells us to ‘believe on Jesus.’ To believe on Jesus means to accept as true what Jesus did for us, and will do for us. What did Jesus do for us?
The most accurate records of Jesus tell us that in his adult years, he was executed on a Roman cross.
His death atoned for the sins that we have committed. He had so much power, that on the third day after his death, he made himself come back alive again.
After showing himself to his followers, he went up to heaven.
If we will accept as true, that Jesus died for us on a Roman cross 2000 years ago,
and if we will then call out to him to save us from our sins, and from God's anger,
he will reconcile us to God the Father.
Being reconciled to God the Father, through Jesus the Son,
is the beginning of the friendship with God that we need for God to listen to us.
As an aside, there are anecdotal stories of non-Christians calling to Jesus to save them from some danger, and they are delivered from those dangers.
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