{"id":1178,"date":"2008-10-22T10:59:33","date_gmt":"2008-10-22T18:59:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/?p=1178"},"modified":"2009-06-26T19:20:07","modified_gmt":"2009-06-27T03:20:07","slug":"jesus-wants-friends-not-fans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2008\/10\/22\/jesus-wants-friends-not-fans","title":{"rendered":"Jesus Wants Friends Not&nbsp;Fans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I was chatting with De Wen (a student in our ministry) yesterday and he made a comment that really resonated with me: \u201cGod wants friends, not&nbsp;fans.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A lot of us settle for being fans. I often settle for being a fan. But there\u2019s so much more available \u2014 like Abraham, we can be friends with God (Isaiah 41:8, James 2:23). As he did to the disciples, Jesus yearns to say to us, \u201cI no longer call you servants but friends\u201d (John 15:15).<\/p>\n<p>But the temptation to be a mere fan is strong. In Jimmy Tate\u2019s memorable phrase, we substitute praise for prayer. We allow the life of the church to displace our own spiritual journey and we live vicariously through the pastor\u2019s insights or the worship leader\u2019s zeal. Like a dutiful fan, we turn out for the game (Sunday morning) and cheer at all the appropriate places. But we don\u2019t call the coach after the game to congratulate him or shoot the breeze. We don\u2019t invite him over for a victory bbq. That\u2019s the stuff a friend would&nbsp;do.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019re just fans, so we go home and talk about how great the game&nbsp;was.<\/p>\n<p>And we miss out on something wonderful.<\/p>\n<div style=\"display:none\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.geektechs.net?hotel_for_dogs\">download hotel for dogs dvdrip<\/a> \n<p style=\"display:none\"><a href=\"http:\/\/notjustaprettyface.org?grim_reaper\">grim reaper divx online<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> <u style=\"display:none\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.clacs04.org?while_she_was_out\">while she was out free download<\/a><\/u> <strong style=\"display:none\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.topicus-healthcare.com?mute_witness\">free mute witness<\/a><\/strong>  <\/p>\n<p style=\"display:none\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.geektechs.net?lucky_numbers\">lucky numbers free<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was chatting with De Wen (a student in our ministry) yesterday and he made a comment that really resonated with me: \u201cGod wants friends, not&nbsp;fans.\u201d A lot of us settle for being fans. I often settle for being a fan. But there\u2019s so much more available \u2014 like Abraham, we can be friends with \u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2008\/10\/22\/jesus-wants-friends-not-fans\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> \u201cJesus Wants Friends Not&nbsp;Fans\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-devotional-nuggets"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Ded-j0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1178"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1178\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1743,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1178\/revisions\/1743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}