The relationship between God and man has been characterized in many ways throughout scripture and history, both regarding its intimate nature and the understanding that God is supremely above us, so far as for us to understand He doesn’t even think the same way we do. This can confuse us sometimes as to our role; after all, where do we stop and where does God begin? If The Holy Spirit is the boss, why is it that I’m able on any given day to engage in the worst behavior? These are legitimate questions, due in part to His mysterious nature.

Most (if not all) of our errors come from the dynamic expressed within the title of this blog post, sometimes we look at Him as our God alone, forgetting He is also our friend and also, we look at Him as our friend, forgetting He is God. When I began to write this, I wanted to focus on the latter but as I arrive at these words, I realize the former can be equally damaging and hurtful to both us and God.

God wants us to be confident in Him. God is The One who is on our side; if any man is on our side, it is because God sent him. He gave us several passages that expressly state to us that we are not to sit on our hands in this life and He can be looked at in the friend role as you accomplish your tasks (including The Great Commission) in order to be productive. As a mental health professional, I believe he encourages us to care for our own souls as far as we’re able; the secular version of this is self-care. These are actually mandates (love God and neighbor as SELF) but we must understand that the mandates regarding self-care and productivity come from God.

So what does that mean, we’re not allowed to hate ourselves, or to be down on ourselves (outside of appropriately mourning over our sins)? Yes sir/ma’am, that’s a commandment. I find it incredibly sweet and caring to look at it that way.  But let’s focus on the latter. What else does He keep us safe from, which is the Godly truth of the command. Are we not insulting Him by disagreeing that we are to love ourselves? Does anything about insulting or disagreeing God sound or feel safe(!)?

He is a gentle spirit, but His power is unimaginable. So let’s look at power; it might help if we can draw a relationship between power, influence, and inspiration. The Holy Spirit inspires us daily as the third member of The Holy Trinity, and as well scripture says we all intrinsically know God’s truth. God is everywhere, so we don’t necessarily have to have engendered a relationship with Him to vaguely feel like something is wrong when it is. We vaguely know something is wrong because we have sense of His will and His edicts (if you are struggling with pornography, consider that there are so many categories because we are simply coming up with new ways to offend God).  Often enough I remind readers that it wasn’t God Himself who kicked the fallen angels out of Heaven, but it was Michael and his angels, inferentially they were executing God’s will. I would never know if or what He actually said, but there is no mention of Him lifting a Godly finger.

Spiritual laws are not like Earthly laws, with Earthly laws being imperfect and circumventable by those who are apt. They also change. God’s laws do not change throughout Heaven, Hell or Earth. They must remain the same throughout the cosmos for each domain to be sustained as He wills. Therefore, if we offend His law (including 1/3 of The Greatest Commandment which is to love ourselves) He is merciful and just to forgive, but we have to know we broke the law.

I’m saying this to say as Loving, kind and intimate as He is, He is still LORD.

God is a big deal (I shutter to use these words, but I believe He is sending a particular message). Therefore, if we ever disagree with Him on anything, we will feel it one way (if we are righteous there will be conflict) or another (if we are evil we will be deceitfully encouraged). Either way we will contend with His devil. 

But again, God is Love. So in the end it’s best to just do what He says and to ask for understanding. He is a safety first kind of God, because we were never supposed to be involved in the conflict between good and evil in the first place. I was engaged with someone in a deep discussion near this topic and asked him, “do you want to be in the middle of a war between angels? I don’t!”. Of course, I’m speaking of the knowledge of good and evil, but in speaking of power levels we simply just don’t want to ‘catch beef’ in the spirit realm in any way, understanding that the more we know God the more responsible we become (remembering that it is Christ crucified who ended the active phase of the war).

Our angels and the demons that harass us are practically looking at each other and what happens next really does depend on what you believe. [1] Due to God’s integrity, our thinking must be in line with His. So if He said he will never leave you, He will never leave you. It’s not that He won’t rescue you when you don’t understand but by the end of it, you will. In other words, The Adversary presents things we were not born ready for because in the beginning our thinking was in line with his. So when the conflict begins (after baptism/conversion) he begins to throw our free will in our face. This is because free will was essentially up for debate in our minds previously, not knowing the truth (God). Once we are set free, we must allow God to defend it (being His design) by aligning our spirit with His.

This is where the friend/God dynamic comes in. God is infinitely and far too wonderful and kind (for us His kids) to not be our friend, as well as He is God. So though He is our friend, it’s important to remember that friend, is God.

Until next time, take care.

Gregory Longmore, LMHC is an online-only Christian Professional Mental Health therapist based in NYC.

[1] I never call them ‘our’ demons, they belong to Satan, who belongs to God.