We think of courtesy in terms of having good manners – opening the door for someone, saying please and thank you. But the Bible has a far broader definition. In the New Testament, the Greek word translated as “courtesy” includes two words meaning “friend” and “the mind.” God, then thinks of us as His friends!

We see this with Moses as he led the children of Israel through the wilderness. The Bible tells us that he would go to the Tent of Meeting and “the Lord would speak to Moses’ face to face, as one speaks to a friend” (Exodus 33:11). While we may not meet with the Almighty “face to face,” we know that He desires to be our friend.

Jesus too called His followers “friends”: “I no longer call you slaves… Now you are my friends since I have told you everything the Father told me” (John 15:15). Jesus embodied the courtesy of God.

Perhaps you think of God as remote and uninvolved, or as a stern parent. But He wants to be your friend, to be an intimate part of your life. And He’s waiting for you.

Reflect on these questions:

How would thinking of God as a friend change your attitude toward Him?

What obstacle prevents you from fully appreciating God’s friendship?

How does your friendship with God impact your relationship with each other?

Read these passages for further study on the relationship with God:

Proverbs 3:31-32

Do not envy the violent
    or choose any of their ways.

³² For the Lord detests the perverse
    but takes the upright into his confidence.

John 15:9-15 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. ¹⁰ If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. ¹¹ I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. ¹² My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. ¹³ Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. ¹⁴ You are my friends if you do what I command. ¹⁵ I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.

James 2:23-24 ²³ And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,”^[a] and he was called God’s friend. ²⁴ You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.

Exodus 33:11-17

The Lord would speak to Moses’ face to face, as one speaks to a friend. Then Moses would return to the camp, but his young aide Joshua son of Nun did not leave the tent.

Moses and the Glory of the Lord

¹² Moses said to the Lord, “You have been telling me, ‘Lead these people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. You have said, ‘I know you by