Sunday, July 18, 2010

"A friend is a friend is a friend is a friend is a friend"

Ahhh. Great words of wisdom from Bob the tomato and Larry the cucumber. :) This song is quite annoying, but it made me stop and think the other day. What is a friend exactly? I have approximately 281 friends on facebook currently. But are they all truly my "friends"? What does Scripture say..."greater love has no man that this, that a man lay down his life for a friend." Not sure I'm willing to exactly lay down my life for some of my 'friends' on facebook. :) But can you imagine loving a friend like that? As moms, we have that type of love for our children. As a wife, I love my best friend (my husband) enough to lay down my life for him. But Christ goes even farther than that! Romans 5:8 reminds us that while we were sinners (that is, enemies of God), Christ died for us. Isn't that amazing love?! Truly, what a friend we have in Jesus. I Corinthians 13 tells us what love is all about. Sometimes it seems so daunting...the task of truly loving (the way the Bible tells us to) a friend. Now I love my friends, don't get me wrong, but my love for them is not always consistent with Scripture. But how important it is! Why else would God inspire Paul to spend a whole chapter on it?

At one time, I thought I had the best, most loving, most devoted friends in the world. We prayed together, drank Starbucks together, had Mary Kay parties together, etc. Then, in an instant, they were gone and pretty much never looked back. All because they believed a simple lie that was told to them about me. I thought surely they would stand by me because they knew me and love me. It was one of the most difficult times in my life. (It is actually a much longer story that I may write about one of these days.) It was a difficult situation to handle, and I'm not judging them...it's been almost two years and I'm way past that by now. But it crushed me at the time. My friends mean SO much to me and it seemed like the ultimate betrayal. Praise God for HIS friendship, though, and that HE will NEVER betray us! HE is the ultimate Friend and HE will never leave us nor forsake us. We should be looking to HIM as our example of what a friend should be. I'm so glad He's my Friend...is He yours? If He is, have you thanked Him lately for the friendship He's offered to us at so great a cost to Him?

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