Fri.'s Devo - We have been chosed to be God's friend.

Read: John 15:14-16
Jesus calls us his friends instead of his servants if we are willing to do whatever he asks of us. Being his friend means he shares with us everything he has been told by God. We are not like slaves who never know the intimacies of the kingdom but are just called to obey; we have been invited to know the secrets of the king. We have been chosen and ordained to produce lasting fruit and whatever we need to do that with is ours for the asking. It is our destiny. He said we did not choose him but he chose us. Wow, that will challenge your theology. We claim that God is in control until we talk about our salvation then we still want to own it. We think that we had the power to will ourselves into the kingdom. We didn't. He chose us before the foundation of the earth. He already knows our whole life and what we will do. In Duet. 10:15 Moses is telling the people what God told him up on the mountain: "the Lord delighted in your fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all people." Jesus chose 12 disciples. Does God not seem fair? He isn't, not in the sense that we know fair; he is just. When the word fair is mentioned in the Bible it has to do with beauty or goodness and is never used to describe God. Just, on the other hand, is mentioned over and over to describe God. It means lawful and righteous.
God has a plan and he is the potter. Who are we, the clay, to ask why did he make us this way? But the bottom line is that God is in control. So God chose us and we have the opportunity to draw near or stay at a distance. Let's draw near.