Lesson 5

When we turn to God and away from evil, he begins to absorb our life. He becomes our life. Our joy. He changes our view of life. The Bible refers to this process as renewing our mind.

Three primary ways the Bible illustrates this change is by referring to him in three different roles: Savior, Lord, and Friend.

The Bible is very careful to show us that Jesus was a human both before he died and after. He called his disciples and the people who loved him “friends.”

After Jesus rose from the dead, he didn’t show the people who killed him how wrong they’d been. Instead, he made his friends breakfast, then walked with them, and joined them for dinner. In another account, he appeared to his friends in a home, showed them his scars, and ate with them.

He wanted to show that his primary purpose in coming to earth was relational.

The God of everything calls us his friend. He serves and loves us, as we serve and love him. He lives inside us in unbroken friendship. We love and respect each other.

If you love him and believe what he says about himself, you will turn away from your own evil, and will experience his love and power in your life.

Of course, for us to experience his friendship, he needs to deliver us from evil and become the center of our lives. As our Savior, he continually forgives us and sets us free. We’ve covered that in previous lessons.

What about Jesus as Lord?

A lord is someone who directs with authority. He says, “do this,” and his servants obey. The Bible says he demands to be our Lord. It’s a pre-requisite to living in friendship with him.

Don’t get confused. He doesn’t want us to grit our teeth and obey. Through the years, God has been angry with a lot of people who gritted their teeth and obeyed. Instead, God wants people to obey him because they want to please him. He wants us to give him our lives out of real love and trust, rather than because we have to.

If you don’t want to obey him and give him your life, immerse yourself in his Word (the Bible), and think about who he is, who he says you are, and what he’s done for you. Then, actively pursue your desire of him.

Here’s a real-life example of how to pursue desire for someone. When lovers are married, they don’t always feel affection for each other. But when they treat each other with kindness, their affection for each other grows.

A wife gets her husband a gift, and while putting the gift together, she remembers his kindness. The simple act of planning, buying, and filling out the card helps her pursue her affection for him because as she remembers who he is and responds to it, affection rises in her heart and becomes real through her belief in him.

When we remind ourselves of who Jesus is and think about his goodness toward us, affection rises in our hearts and becomes real. In response, he changes our desires, and gives us the strength to obey him out of love and trust in who he is.

For God’s promises to become real in our lives, we need to pursue our affection for him through reading his Word, praying, and trusting and obeying his commands. All of that changes our mindset as we grow to desire him as our Savior, Lord, and Friend.

These processes matter because God uses them to change who we are. He reforms our identity through our trust in his identity as our Savior, Lord, and Friend.