Proverbs 17:17 says, “A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.” A friend is there for you at all sorts of times in your life. A man who is a true friend will be there for you even when it costs him. We all need true friends. We need friends who will be candid with us when we are wrong. Proverbs 9:8 says, “Reprove not a scorner, lest he hate thee: rebuke a wise man, and he will love thee.” Perhaps one of the big problems we face today is few people will accept rebuke. Few have friends that are willing tell them when they are wrong from a motivation of love desiring what is best for another. Many deem it too costly to risk angering another with the truth. However, true friends value what is best for us above a surface-level tranquility. Proverbs 27:6 says, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.”
Jesus is the paragon of a true friend. His sayings are not always easy to hear, but they are what we need. He has the words of eternal life (Jn. 6:68). In John 15:12-17, Jesus said:
This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you. Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you. These things I command you, that ye love one another.
Jesus is the greatest friend because He laid down His life for us. Being there for us when could not save ourselves cost Him everything (Rom. 5:6-9). If the wounds of a true friend are faithful, how much more of a blessing are they if they are borne instead of inflicted? Isaiah 53:5 tells us that Jesus “was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.” The wounds of our greatest friend were not inflicted on us but suffered by Him on the cross for us (1 Pet. 2:24).
Jesus invites us into the fellowship He sustains with the Father, saying earlier in John 15 to His disciples, “As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love” (Jn. 15: 9, 10). The Father and Son are eternally one (Jn. 1:1-3; 10:30; 17:21). When we are baptized into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, we enter into fellowship with God (Mt. 28:19). As long as we continue in the teaching of Christ, we have both the Father and the Son (2 Jn. 9). God—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—invite you to come into the love of friendship which unites the saved (Isa. 55:1; Mt. 11:28-30; Rev. 22:17).
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