BECOMING A FRIEND OF JESUS...

BECOMING A FRIEND OF JESUS

To be close friends with someone doesn’t happen overnight.
It only happens when you have been spending alot of time with the person and you start to share deep intimate things and really personal information with each other.

In the same way having a close bond and relationship with Jesus is real,but it doesn’t happen overnight or accidentally.
It only happens when you spend alot of time with Him.

At first, when I started to seek Jesus,10 minutes of prayer seemed like hours.
That was because I didn’t love Him much.
Just like when you have to spend time with a stranger whom you have little in common with, it’s so awkward you don’t have much to say to one another because you don’t share a close bond.
As a result,just few minutes with them seem like forever.
But in those few of minutes,I would ask Jesus to help me draw near Him and help me love Him,and to help me spend more time with Him in prayer and to help me enjoy spending much time with Him.

Even if I wasn’t able to spend much time in prayer,I still allocated time for prayer and since it was hard to spend much time in prayer,I wouldn’t be satisfied with the amount of time I spent in prayer and would keep going back to force myself to pray still.
I would go back there several times in a day even though I was only praying for short periods of time.About 15 minutes of forcing myself to stay in God’s presence even if I didn’t feel like.

As I kept doing that,the Lord started to give me His grace and I started to be able to spend more time with Him even though I wasn’t really enjoying the prayer time.I was praying because I knew this was the only way to get close to Jesus.

But every day got easier with the Lord’s help than the previous,and I was spending longer time each time because I started to develop a bond with Jesus.
I could feel my love for the Lord growing in my heart the more I kept praying.

Just like when you continue spending time with that person who at once was a stranger and you start to have more and more things to talk about because now you have developed a friendship.
I would go to the backyard where I would have privacy,then pray and talk to God about things on my heart, just talking to Him like I would talk to a friend,just telling Him what was on my heart.

As I kept doing it,I moved from praying because I have to, to actually enjoying that time I was spending with the Lord Jesus.
Then I started to actually yearn for that time of being alone with the Lord, talking to Him from my heart.

And as I kept praying,the Lord was increasing my love for Him and it just kept on getting deeper and deeper.
Because I now loved Jesus,Obeying Him was bringing me joy now because I knew I was making Him happy by being obedient.

Now i was obeying Him because I loved Him.
Now I was praying, not because of obligation but because I loved the Lord and wanted to be with Him.

Instead of being a burden prayer was now bringing joy because Jesus was no longer that stranger whom it’s so awkward to have deep conversations with, instead He was a close friend with whom I shared a deep bond and loved.

And as I kept on praying and asking for the Lord’s help to love Him and to be able to pray,then I actually got addicted to being with Jesus.

At first when I had just started to seek the Lord, I would want to rush prayer so that I can go and do everything else.
But now the Lord changed my heart and when I was doing other things I was actually rushing to be done with those things that I had to do so that I could go and be with Jesus.

Before,when am praying my mind would be trying to wonder to everything else that I would rather be doing instead of praying,but now when I was doing everything else,Jesus would be the One on my mind,I just wanted to get done and go and spend time with Jesus in prayer.

One-day I was with my brothers,and my sister,we were going back home to my parents house,we weren’t so far from home and my siblings were taking their time.
I kept trying to make them hurry,my heart was so much yearning to go back home to pray.
I felt like they weren’t walking fast enough.
I couldn’t control the desire to just go and be alone with Jesus in prayer.

When we were finally home,they went in the house,but I just ran to the backyard where I loved to pray from.
When I finally knelt down before the Lord,I couldn’t control the joy of finally being with Jesus,my heart was leaping for joy that I could finally pray!
I remember kneeling down and just telling Him,”Lord am so happy to finally be here with You!”
I was literally addicted to His presence,yet at first,just 10 minutes with Him was a burden!

At first I didn’t love Jesus but He kept increasing my love for Him the more time I spent with Him till I could literally feel the love in my heart.
He kept increasing it till I couldn’t contain it,it felt like it was just overflowing now.
It felt like a container that’s full to the brim and almost bursting.
I didn’t love Him at first when I started spending time with Him,now hearing His name,I couldn’t contain it and could just start crying because I loved Him so much.

I was at the market and one of the women selling vegetables was playing a gospel song on her phone.
I don’t know the song but the singer mentioned the Lord’s name,”JESUS,JESUS”
Being out here at the market and then hearing the Lord’s name,my heart leaped for joy!
I couldn’t control it and tears were just streaming down because of hearing His name.
I couldn’t understand what was happening to me but it was supernatural.
Jesus was the One who was making me love Him.

Loving Jesus is a supernatural work It doesn’t happen accidentally, it’s deliberate effort to spend time with Him,just like in a physical friendship.
You draw near and He also draws near you.
The more time you spend with the Lord,the more He helps you love Him and you start to obey Him not out of obligation but because you love Him so much you want to make Him happy.

Loving Jesus is important because it makes it easier to obey Him that is why even Jesus said if you love Me,keep My commandments.
When you love Him you will obey Him.
When we love Him,His will becomes important to us.

Jesus is always as close as we want Him to be.None of us can ever love Him unless He helps us to.But that happens when we spend time with Him.
Jesus becomes real.The close friendship with Him becomes real.It makes us enjoy being with Him.
Obeying Him brings us joy.

Allocate time for prayer daily then just take your time and commune with the Lord.
He also loves to spend time with us.