The Question Most People Avoid
What if the greatest tragedy at the end of your life is not that you failed, wandered, or struggled — but that you lived your entire life talking about Jesus without ever actually knowing Him as a friend? Not knowing His voice. Not recognizing His tone. Not being familiar with the way He speaks when you’re afraid, tired, or hiding. Many believers spend years learning about God while quietly remaining strangers to Him. But Jesus did not die to create informed followers. He died to restore friendship. And friendship with Him was never meant to be silent.
When you stand before Him, what do you think He would say about your friendship with Him?
Not your church attendance.
Not your Scripture memory.
Not your worship songs.
Your friendship.
This is the question most people avoid—or maybe have never honestly considered.
Wait… He’s going to ask me about my friendship with Him?
What do you think of when you hear the word relationship? For many of us, it feels stagnant. Distant. Formal.
But when I hear the word friendship, it feels more raw. More tender. That might be different for you, but the distinction matters.
When a question reaches a place your brain hasn’t categorized yet, you’re forced to examine the foundation beneath it. To understand friendship with God, we must first understand who we believe He is—our ideologies, beliefs, and perceptions about Him.
How You See God Determines How You Relate to Him as a Friend
God is who He says He is…
But who is that?
Many of us can quote Scripture line by line and still miss the Man speaking between the lines. The Bible tells the story of a Sovereign Author writing from His throne—revealing His heart, not just His rules.
We sing about Him often. But let’s slow down long enough to ask: Who does He say He is as a communicator? As a friend?
Friendship with God requires two-way communication. You cannot have real friendship with only one person that talks. That is simply not genuine.
If we want to be able to hear God, we must then believe these beliefs according to scriptures to be true:
God is approachable. (Hebrews 4:16)
God cares about me. (Isaiah 49:16, Jeremiah 31:3, 1 Peter 5:7
God thinks abundantly good thoughts about me. (Psalm 139:17)
God speaks to me. (John 10:27)
God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.
I am no longer excluded.
He speaks.
He responds.
He draws near.
Why? Because God is so jealous over you. He desires that you carry the true life you were meant to live.
He is the One who loved humanity so deeply that He refused to stay distant. He didn’t save you because you were “so bad.” He sent Jesus to know you as a friend—because you are that valuable. He wants you free of every care of this world system that so easily entangles you. He will use any means necessary to bring you in.
Jesus didn’t come to reinforce religion on you. He came to pull you out of a dying religious structure built on control. Rules, regulations, and rigid structure are what killed Him. Once religion realized Jesus was no longer controllable, they conspired Him to die.
And yet—His death, resurrection and ascension reignited the divine flame in humanity.
At Pentecost, divine authority moved from an external operating system to an internal one. The Spirit came to dwell within us, giving us the capacity to live free and led—not managed externally.
This is the adversary’s nightmare.
The enemy hates when you realize you can have a living, moving friendship with Jesus—one that gives you the wisdom and conviction to live righteously from the inside out without having to be controlled.
Once your life is built on hearing God and responding from that place, you become unstoppable. Even death cannot stop what carries His voice. When you die, that conviction multiplies and continues in the earth.
You carry a divine flame in you, given and lit at the time you believed that you were born again into a new Kingdom. Along with that flame of Love, God gave everything you could ever need for life and godliness through the blood of Jesus.
Inviting Jesus Into the Mess
One of the ways we dismantle religion’s control is by inviting Jesus into the mess.
Evil hates exposure, even though it loves creating messes. The enemy creates chaos and then convinces you to pretend it isn’t there. But his power collapses when Jesus is invited into what was meant to stay hidden.
We can know about Him.
We can sing to Him.
We can study His Word.
And still miss Him when pressure and conflict come.
Why? Why don’t we invite Him into our mess?
Because we’ve been taught that mess equals failure—that conflict means we’ve done something wrong. Sometimes that’s true. But it’s never the whole story.
Look at the man born blind in John 9.
Modern life teaches us to manage ourselves into transformation:
We’re fine.
We’re good.
I’m not that bad—look at them.
But this man was healed because he confessed his blindness. He invited Jesus into his inability to see.
And Jesus—clean, pure—washed a man’s eyes with dirt.
How does mud make someone clean?
I love this. Jesus uses what looks shameful to restore dignity. He takes the very thing meant to disqualify us and uses it for cleansing.
But the key is confession.
The religious leaders refused to admit anything was wrong. I’m faithful. I shouldn’t have problems. And yet their inner world was chaos because they refused to let Jesus in.
The blind man said, I am blind. Help me.
The Pharisees said, We’re not that bad.
Jesus saw higher. Confession turned suffering into glory.
Mess Is a Door
Mess, pressure, conflict, and trials are all doors.
We can walk through the door of Jesus—framed with confession, cleansing, fire, peace, and joy.
Or we can walk through the door that looks safer, easier, and explainable—but leads to shallow peace and false fire.
To live with a light burden and an easy yoke, we must believe we can hear Him personally. Friendship with Jesus requires communication that breaks boxes.
Many of us were never taught how to live in raw friendship with Him.
“Just read your Bible,” they say. This is the only way He speaks.
That same mindset rejected Jesus when He came.
Instead of confessing, we try harder. We add more spiritual tasks. The inner life becomes crowded, anxious, self-monitoring—driven by fear.
Now there’s a war inside: uncrucified sin battling Scripture we’re using to cover it.
Distance grows. God gets blamed.
What began as conviction becomes confusion because there was never real confession—only performance.
Jesus doesn’t want you polished. He wants you present.
Sin only dies in the light. And light comes through confession—spoken, exposed, brought into truth.
Religion keeps you self-protecting. Friendship with Jesus dismantles that framework entirely.
The enemy doesn’t want you hearing God’s voice because God’s voice obliterates shame. It exposes lies and leaves you covered while darkness stands exposed.
When the veil tore, shame lost its authority.
Friendship with Jesus becomes the doorway to life—right in the middle of weakness.
Why Hearing God Matters
Hearing God makes faith personal. It shatters shame.
He always meets us in weakness—but He can’t heal what we hide.
The voice of the Lord turns dead religion into living relationship and Scripture into embodied life.
When we get to heaven, I don’t want us to realize we only knew about Him. I want us to know what walking with Him actually felt like.
Scripture Foundation — Matthew 7:21–23
“Knew” (γινώσκω / ginōskō) means intimate, experiential knowing—the same word used in Genesis: Adam knew Eve.
Jesus isn’t saying, I didn’t know about you.
He’s saying, You never let Me in.
You did things for Me, but not with Me.
Rules without friendship always produce shame and rebellion. This verse isn’t meant to scare us—it’s meant to awaken us.
Jesus isn’t after better behavior. He’s after proximity.
Hearing Him Changes Everything
Hearing Him turns ink into breath.
Safety enters the body. Tension releases. The nervous system settles.
When you feel safe, confession becomes life-giving. Faith becomes communion.
He’s been speaking all along—through stillness, creation, conviction, comfort.
This isn’t about getting God to speak.
It’s about slowing down enough to hear.
The Invitation: Relationship, Not Religion
Friendship with Jesus is the inheritance of every son and daughter.
When you hear Him well, obedience becomes love in motion.
Your role is simple: come. Believe. Listen.
The Holy Spirit makes this friendship possible.
How to Recognize His Voice
God is always speaking.
The question is whether we’re listening.
His voice sounds like love.
It brings light, not confusion.
It aligns with Scripture.
It invites trust, not fear.
How to Grow in Hearing Him
Hearing grows through intimacy, awe, obedience, and faith.
Obedience doesn’t earn His voice—it tunes your ear. I love teaching how to grow in hearing God’s voice because it is so insanely simple. I want you to recognize there are 4 different types of ways you can hear God. Some of us have a mix of all of them. The key is to understand, you hear Him. Say it with me, I HEAR GOD!
See, Hear, Feel, Know
Try it, get feedback, try again!
Word of God & Wise Counsel
The Final Invitation
God is speaking more than we realize.
The goal isn’t striving harder.
It’s drawing closer.
Friendship is the doorway.
Closeness is the key.
Love is the language.
When you know His voice, you know His heart.
And when you know His heart, fear loses its voice.
This is the kind of friend Jesus is.
