Friends

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Friends are a gift. This isn’t really a new thought, but God has begun to open my eyes to the true value of friendship, and He has done this through His word and the friends He has placed in my life. Jesus demonstrated friendship when he willingly laid down His life for my sin before I was even born. I can more closely grasp the concept of Him dying for His disciples who walked the earth with Him than I can grasp the crazy love he showed for me when He died (and rose again) almost 2,000 years before my birth for a future relationship with me. When I think on it, the idea that God would send Jesus to die for my sin amazes me; the fact that I am not a person worth dying for—not good or noble or pure—astounds me even further. The Message states this idea powerfully in Romans 5:8 when it says that God offered Jesus for us “while we were of no use whatever to him.” That is friendship of a kind I really do not have the capacity to understand, but can genuinely appreciate. In Luke 15:13 Jesus says that the greatest love a person can have for another is when he or she willingly lays down his life for his friends; in this statement, He is dropping hints for his disciples about His coming death and His willing part in it. In Luke 15:14, Jesus identifies who these friends of His are when he says, “You are My friends if you do what I command you” (NASB). Not long after saying this, Jesus went to the cross, separated Himself from God long enough to bear my sin on His shoulders, and died that I might live with Him eternally (John 3:16). He came to this earth knowing the cost, but He came in spite of it. That is true friendship, and I want to be counted among His friends when I see Him face to face. I also want to be a friend like Him, but this cross that Jesus has asked us to pick up and carry often seems hard even though it is “momentary, light affliction” (II Cor. 4:17). Fortunately for us, Jesus is a precious gift, and even though the weight of this cross produces incomprehensible rewards, He sends us friends to help us carry the burdens, and for that, I’m truly grateful.

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