On being a friend to God Arnold Van Vugt

(Below is another article by the late Ernesto Mondoñedo)

GOD the Creator has invited all his creatures to be a friend to Him. This has become very clear when He sent his Son into the world to be a truly human being. Jesus of Nazareth learned from his mother and his father who God really was and he experienced in his life that God was a friend to him. From Jesus Christ we have learned how God wants to be a friend to us. In constant prayer and reflection we must become more aware of this.
“God is a friend to everyone. He is the best of friends or He would not be God.

God owed us nothing. Yet He made us and for no other reason than to give us the very best of Him that we could receive. He owns everything. So there is no measure to what He could give; only by what we would receive.
God’s love is so perfect that He leaves to his beloved the final choice of doing what he feels like doing with his gift. And in order for his beloved to make the right choice He does not cease to enlighten with the additional gift of his wisdom. He even commanded his only Son to take flesh so He could assist with the choice and bear the humiliation of the gift being spurned.

It takes two to seal a bond of friendship. There is no doubt that God ceaselessly offers his part of the bond. How come God is a friend to so very few?

No one but the fallen angels would intentionally reject God’s friendship. The most likely reason can only be the darkness of human ignorance. Who can be a friend to someone he doesn’t really know? Who can find and join the fellowship and family of God except by following his Son’s leads that God also lights profusely by the gift of his wisdom?

God generously revealed how we can infallibly know who He is. He revealed it in a library of books called the Holy Bible. Most Christians accept its basic message as inspired by God. They dip into it as Holy Scriptures blessed by God with revelation of Himself and of his undying love for his creation. He even directed his Risen Son to send their Spirit of Love to elevate his followers and community of followers into becoming living temples of God in their midst.

God even revealed in the life of Christ the way He intends his people to benefit fully from the legacy of ways and means to perfect their friendship with Him. Thus Christ had to be truly human, He had to learn how He could be a friend to God so He could infallibly show us the way.

Christ, as man, could not enjoy the benefits of the divine wisdom and power and still be truly human. So He must have been born not knowing who He really was; much less who God was. He had to learn this from his mother, who was conceived full of divine gifts, and from prophesies about Him in Scriptures. And these were not enough.

Christ started his public life by withdrawing from food and worldly cares for 40 days to pray; to be subjected to the abuse of the evil spirits; and undoubtedly to receive further confirmation by the Holy Spirit of the truth of his reflections from Holy Scriptures on who He was and what his Father called Him to do. He demonstrated the necessity of withdrawing to pray by doing it often during the three years that He shared with his apostles and disciples the truth God continued to reveal to Him. He must have withdrawn many times to pray as He grew up long before his public ministry. Otherwise He could not have reminded his Mother that she should have known that He must be about his Father’s business.

What happened during the first few years after his ascension helped establish the most likely ways and means for his apostles and disciples and for us Christians to own the Pearl of Great Price which will empower all the followers of Christ to preach, witness to and authentically be the Good News of humanity’s salvation from the evils of today’s society. This will be the subject of the next article. Hopefully we can rediscover from Holy Scriptures and from Christ’s frequent resort to prayer how we can own this Pearl and harness its power to spread and apply it to the problems even of the non-Christian world.”

If we are a friend to God, we must be also a friend to each other. That is much easier said than done. How often it happens that we got out of bed on the wrong side and so many ill-feelings against our next-door neighbors overwhelm us? We must fight these feelings in order to stay friends with each other. How do you do that? You must realize that each one, in his own way, is a friend to God and we must try to honor that.
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