The Blessing of Friends

One doesn’t have to travel far down the road of life before realizing the need of having sincere friends. It has been said that no man is an island unto himself and how true that is. Proverbs 17:17 says :”A friend loveth at all times and a brother is born for adversity”. The type of friends spoken of in this passage are not found in abundance, but must be cultivated. If you want friends who’re totally reliable and trustworthy and who don’t fail you then you must be that kind of friend to others

EVERYONE NEEDS FRIENDS:

This life is filled with hardships and disappointments, the nature of which demands that we have friends who stand by us in good times or bad. Do such friends exists? Yes, everyone can have such friends in life but true friendships do not develop down a one way street. One must be worthy of his friends. If you perhaps wonder sometimes why you do not have true friends, you would do well to remember PROVERBS 18:24 “A man that hath friends must show himself friendly, and the rest of the verse says ----“and there’s a friend that sticketh closer than a brother”. We all need friends who surpass the standard and are friends who stick closer than a brother.

JOHN 15:13, “Greater love hath no man than this; That a man lay down his life for his friends.” The greatest friend any of us will ever have is JESUS CHRIST, the SON of GOD .W e often sing a song “What a friend we have in Jesus,” yet so often we fail to realize the meaning of the song. The blessings of friendship with the Christ are innumerable !. He has already died in our behalf, and in the words of the song ,”Can we find a friend so faithful ?”.

The amazingly beautiful thing is that when one accepts the friendship of Christ in his life it opens vistas of numerous friendships with those who are already friends with the anointed one. Surely every Christian enjoys relationships with other Christians who meet every standard of what a true friend should be .Oh ,the blessings of friendships with the friends of Jesus! However, we all need to take stock, to take inventory of our own lives and see if we are being such a friend to other people. Are you thought of by another as being “ a friend that sticketh closer than a brother”?

Surely we ought not to want in life what we are unwilling to give. Just as we need friends who surpass the standard , there are others depending on us to surpass that standard for them.

Each Christian is to strive to be more Christlike. It has been said that we are “Christ in miniature.” Simply put, that means we can only be a copy of Jesus on a much reduced scale. We can never measure up to the example of Christ, but we can strive to do our best and at least be like him on a smaller scale. In JOHN 11:35 we read that “Jesus wept”. Why did he weep ?.He, was to Lazarus, “a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.” The Jews, seeing Jesus weep openly, said “Behold how he loved him! “. Ah yes, the blessings of friendship with Jesus and with his friends are innumerable.

Culled from :THE VOICE OF TRUTH.( A journal of the Churches of Christ)

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