{"id":14595,"date":"2016-08-04T11:29:28","date_gmt":"2016-08-04T15:29:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=14595"},"modified":"2016-08-04T11:33:20","modified_gmt":"2016-08-04T15:33:20","slug":"the-brave-friendship-of-god-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=14595","title":{"rendered":"The Brave Friendship of God"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/VgGP3g1rjA8\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>He took the twelve aside\u2026 \u2014Luke 18:31<br \/>\n<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Oh, the bravery of God in trusting us! Do you say, \u201cBut He has been unwise to choose me, because there is nothing good in me and I have no value\u201d? That is exactly why He chose you. As long as you think that you are of value to Him He cannot choose you, because you have purposes of your own to serve. But if you will allow Him to take you to the end of your own self-sufficiency, then He can choose you to go with Him \u201cto Jerusalem\u201d (Luke 18:31). And that will mean the fulfillment of purposes which He does not discuss with you.<\/p>\n<p>We tend to say that because a person has natural ability, he will make a good Christian. It is not a matter of our equipment, but a matter of our poverty; not of what we bring with us, but of what God puts into us; not a matter of natural virtues, of strength of character, of knowledge, or of experience\u2014 all of that is of no avail in this concern. The only thing of value is being taken into the compelling purpose of God and being made His friends (see 1 Corinthians 1:26-31). God\u2019s friendship is with people who know their poverty. He can accomplish nothing with the person who thinks that he is of use to God. As Christians we are not here for our own purpose at all\u2014 we are here for the purpose of God, and the two are not the same. We do not know what God\u2019s compelling purpose is, but whatever happens, we must maintain our relationship with Him. We must never allow anything to damage our relationship with God, but if something does damage it, we must take the time to make it right again. The most important aspect of Christianity is not the work we do, but the relationship we maintain and the surrounding influence and qualities produced by that relationship. That is all God asks us to give our attention to, and it is the one thing that is continually under attack.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>He took the twelve aside\u2026 \u2014Luke 18:31 Oh, the bravery of God in trusting us! Do you say, \u201cBut He has been unwise to choose me, because there is nothing good in me and I have no value\u201d? That is exactly why He chose you. As long as you think that you are of value [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14595"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14595"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14598,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14595\/revisions\/14598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}