Kris Vallotton shows what happens when you strive to lower God to your level...

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You are my friends if you do what I command you. -- John 15: 14 (ESV)

http://krisvallotton.com/can-we-change-gods-mind/

Beloved, I do hope and pray that this teaching is as revelatory to you as has been to me. Followers of this ministry know that I often write about "friend of God" theology. In 2006, Israel Houghton won song of the year for his composition known as Friend of God. We all know the song and have probably sung it hundreds of times in church. I remember that increasingly the song would stick in my spirit like a needle; as if something was wrong that I could not put my finger quite on. Then a good brother once said to me, singing Friend of God does not actually make you a friend of God. I started praying when the song would come on; wanting to see the spirit behind it and what I was always left with was the song is actually very narcissistic in nature. It is a song about me disguised as a song about Him. It is not worship to declare to God that you are His friend.

The problem of course is not the song. Houghton was Joel Osteen's worship leader so it should come as no surprise that his biggest hit is not actually about God. All Houghton was doing however was providing an anthem for people who have been taught wrongly for so long about the nature of their relationship with Jesus Christ. Fast forward ten years and the Friend of God theologies have been placed on steroids to the point that last year a mega pastor actually preached a sermon called, "Jesus is my wingman." One such mega-heresy center is Bethel Church and their number two resident Bible butcher is Kris Vallotton. Kris not only believes in the Friend of God theologies but he unashamedly writes about them and the results are quite revealing. God is always there to serve Kris Vallotton. Need more money? Jesus is my ATM. Need a new job? Jesus is my blessing dispenser. Why? Well because He is my friend dude! So let us reason together through his (linked above) recent blog article entitled, "Can We Change God's Mind?"

"Here at Bethel we have a core value that God is good. What helps us actually grasp this is the saying that "God is in a good mood." I know that many people say God is good but they see His goodness as His unyielding moral standing, rather than a part of His personality or nature. When I think about the Creator of the universe being in an actual good mood, it helps put things into perspective. It makes Him feel closer and more personal. It makes Him feel more approachable and relatable. It makes Him feel more like a friend than a master. The truth is that God is infinite and has so many names and facets that it's impossible to put Him in a box, but Scripture shows us that He does want to relate to us as friends. He's calling us into intimacy, connection and conversation". Just as a friend would. Is that how you see God?" -- Kris Vallotton

When your goal is to denigrate God down to your level, the vehicle often used is to humanize God. To give Him human attributes to level the playing field. The goodness of God IS part of His unyielding moral standing! That's the entire point! But that does not allow Kris Vallotton's wickedly deceitful heart to feel like he is in control. Thus we must forfeit the unyielding moral standing and exchange it for a personality. Instead of goodness, God is in a good mood. How ridiculously unbiblical can you get? Kris is right that this switch changes the perspective but he fails to realize that this is not a positive development. He is no longer looking up at God. Now he is sitting across the table from Him. He feels closer, personal, and even intimate. It makes Kris feel as if He is more relatable and approachable as well. Then we see the tell all sentence:

It makes Him feel more like a friend than a master.

Therein lies the major problem with following friend of God theologies. Your perspective on who God is changes and as a result it is no longer God you are seeing. God does not lie. God does not change. God does not sit across the table from you and sip a latte. Get over yourself.

"Exodus 32:9-14 says (emphasis added), "The Lord said to Moses, "I have seen this people, and behold, they are an obstinate people. Now then let Me alone, that My anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them; and I will make of you a great nation." Then Moses entreated the Lord his God, and said, "O Lord, why does Your anger burn against Your people whom You have brought out from the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians speak, saying, 'With evil intent He brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to destroy them from the face of the earth'? Turn from Your burning anger and change Your mind about doing harm to Your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants to whom You swore by Yourself, and said to them, 'I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heavens, and all this land of which I have spoken I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.'" So the Lord changed His mind about the harm which He said He would do to His people." When God changed His mind in these verses, do you think He had made a mistake in the first place? Or maybe He was just getting old and forgot His promises? Absolutely not! I think that sometimes when God prophesies to us, He's testing our hearts rather than determining our destiny." -- Kris Vallotton

Beloved, this is so bad but we must understand that when your mission is to even the playing field with God you will simply not see what should be plain before your eyes. The Bible cannot be any clearer. God does not change His mind. Numbers says that He is not man that He would change His mind. James teaches us that God does not change like shifting shadows. In Malachi God declares -- I do not change! Maybe if Kris spent more time trying to find Jesus in the Bible he would spend less time missing Him. Moses is a type of Christ interceding to spare us from the wrath of God. What does Kris conclude? That God sometimes lies. Read between the lines here. He sometimes prophesies to us as a test rather than determining our destiny? That would mean God is the one being willfully deceptive and that is simply not in His unyielding moral standing. Now Kris starts to reveal how the friend of God theologies has really damaged everything he believes:

"Moses' response showed God that he was a leader. God's response to Moses shows us that he is a friend of God, not just a slave. If you're a slave of God then you only have a one-way relationship with Him and you just do what you're told. However, if you're a friend of God then you are invited into a relationship and an interaction with Him. Friends influence friends. God tells friends what He's thinking. In Chapter 33 of Exodus, God said He'd be faithful to His promise but that He wasn't going with the Israelites to the Promised Land. He'd rather send an angel to go ahead of them." -- Kris Vallotton

Good thing Moses had to show an omniscient God that he was a leader. Beloved this entire paragraph and indeed article, is simply made up from the deceitful and poorly taught heart of Kris Vallotton. The Bible does not say that if you were a slave you only have a one way relationship with God. Friends influence friends? Are you understanding what heresy Vallotton is spewing here? God is not supposed to merely "influence" you and under no circumstances do we influence the Creator of the Universe. The other important takeaway here is that Kris is right that God tells us what He thinks. The disconnect is that we find what He thinks in the Bible and that is the one thing Kris will not follow.

"Moses said to God that he'd rather be in the wilderness with God than in the promised land with an angel. So God said He'd go with them. This is another sign of friendship over slavery. Some people who are just slaves may see signs and wonders, but have no idea that they only have an angel and don't have God's presence with them. When you're a friend of God, you care more about His presence than His promises. God wants to move us from slavery into friendship. He's shifting the church now because He doesn't want a bride who is a slave girl. Do you see yourself as a slave or friend of God? And maybe the more challenging question is do you value His presence over His promises? Of course God is faithful and fulfills His word, without a doubt! But sometimes that doesn't always look the way we imagine. In the place where you are holding onto His promises, will you hold even tighter to His presence?" -- Kris Vallotton

Now let's have a little fun with words as we get into the deeper revelation here. There is a word that despite appearing over 1100 times in Hebrew in the Old Testament is only translated correctly one time. In the New Testament, this word appears over 150 times in the original Greek but it is only translated correctly a handful of times and usually then in the abstract.

That word beloved, is slave.

It has been translated as servant, hired hand, bondservant and helper. None of these words mean slave directly. It was decided at the time of modern translation that the word slave contained too negative a connotation. The result is generations of people who have been soft peddling their relationship with God that made them ripe for picking when friend of God theologies came along. Usually the verse given to support friend of God theology is John 15:15:

No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. -- John 15: 15 (ESV)

Standing alone, this verse may lend support to such teachings but the key verse today is the context. It is the verse that immediately precedes this and it plainly states that you are my friends if you do as I command. Is that how friendships work in this world? For Kris Vallotton, these verses show that God wants to move us from slaves to friends but that is not what they say at all. They are saying that you cannot be my Friend without first being my slave! It has to start with obedience! We are friends beloved through His Word. These are the things heard from the Father that He has made known to us! Kris Vallotton is so busy chasing the Charismaniacal Holy Ghost goose bumps which he thinks is God's presence that he cannot see the sheer biblical lunacy he promotes by pointing people away from the promises of God. It is not really the promises per see. For Kris and Bethel it is always about this experiential Christianity over the constraints of doctrine. So he mashes up some verses he clearly does not understand and creates a doctrine of demons unlike we have seen before. That people who chase the subjective "presence" of God are His friends while people who cling to the objective verity of Scripture, His promises, are slaves. He does this without even realizing that every time he has read us described as servant or even helper -- the actual word there is slave. Because people like Kris Vallotton will have hard time understanding the state of the believer as a slave, let us start with some basics. Slaves are owned.

Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. -- 2Corinthians 2: 21-22 (NIV)

The Holy Spirit is a seal of ownership beloved. We belong to God! He bears responsibility for us. It is the reason none may pluck us from His hand. Why in the world would you run away from this truth? The Bible does not say we cannot serve two bosses -- because we could. It says we cannot serve two masters -- because we can't. A master is one who we answer to. Who has control over us. God is not our friend if He is not our Master! That doesn't sound like the way we understand carnal friendship? Too bad! He is God! His ways and thoughts are higher than the heavens are apart from us. I might add here that when someone came close to experiencing the actual presence of God in the Bible what happened:

And I said: "Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!" -- Isaiah 6:5 (ESV)

When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, "Fear not, I am the first and the last, - Revelation 1: 17 (ESV)

This is Isaiah and John -- not exactly spiritual lightweights. Beloved there is no sipping a latte with Jesus. The reason why Kris Vallotton and Bethel is left with selling Relationship Jesus is that they refuse to be mastered by Him. They refuse to be subservient to Him. They want Him to be more relatable. They want Him to feel more like a friend than a master. The truth is the world is their master and they have no intention of giving it up. Kim Walker-Smith is the worship leader for Jesus Culture, which arose from Bethel. She has one of the most demonic testimonies ever told in which Jesus gives her a waking visitation and whisks her away to the throne room where she meets the Father face to face. She giggles like a school girl and asks Him a couple of questions before the Father rips out a piece of His own heart to mold a miniature Kim Walker to dance for Him. I kid you not beloved. Now we know this did not really happen as Kim thinks because the Bible tells us no one shall see the Father and live. Kim however was raised and taught at Bethel where personal experience trumps doctrine so she dismisses what the Bible says about this. This is the danger of leaving the surety of the Holy Word of God. Our experience is rooted in our own hearts, which the Bible assures us is the most deceitful thing ever made.

Beloved, every time you proclaim that Jesus is Lord you are essentially admitting that you are His slave. This should be a source of great comfort as we know He is a Good Lord. His yoke is easy and His burden light. Perhaps one of the greatest road blocks to accepting this is the false notion of freedom and independence. What the Kris Vallotton's of the world fail to see is that they are already slaves to this world and to the lord of this world, Satan. Like Bob Dylan once wrote, you're gonna have to serve somebody. It may be the devil or it may be the Lord but you're gonna have to serve somebody. Those who are found sealed by ownership will go on serving Jesus Christ. Those who are not will go right on serving the devil and no Kris. You cannot change God's mind about it.

Reverend Anthony Wade -- December 30, 2017

Authors Bio:
Credentialed Minister of the Gospel for the Assemblies of God. Owner and founder of 828 ministries. Vice President for Goodwill Industries. Always remember that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.