Jesus Rings True

"A man who has friends must himself be friendly, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother."

Proverbs 18:24

The friend you desire is the friend you ought to be to others.  C.S. Lewis wrote something profound in his book The Four Loves:  "The very condition of having Friends is that we should want something else besides Friends." (Martindale, Wayne, and Jerry Root. The Quotable Lewis. Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2005. page 236)  If all you want is a friend - like a child who is glad to have a neighbour for an hour and then for them to go home - then it should be no surprise you find friendship rare.  Friends are not a commodity to possess but a fellow to walk alongside and encourage through life.  Yet if a person offers intimacy and accepts others with the same love reserved for family, this is a friend worth having.  Friendship is a gift of God we can cultivate which knits hearts together with a connection truer than that of blood relation alone.  C.S. Lewis went on to write this:

"The common quest or vision which unites Friends does not absorb them in such a way that they remain ignorant or oblivious of one another.  On the contrary it is the very medium in which their mutual love and knowledge exist.  One knows nobody so well as one's "fellow."  Every step of the common journey tests his metal; and the tests are tests we fully understand because we are undergoing them ourselves.  hence, as he rings true time after time, our reliance, our respect and our admiration blossom into an Appreciative Love of a singularly robust and well-informed kind.  If, at the outset, we had attended more to him and less to the thing our Friendship is "about," we should not have come to know or love him so well.  You will not find the warrior, the poet, the philosopher or the Christian by staring in his eyes as if he were your mistress:  better fight beside him, read with him, argue with him, pray with him." (Martindale, Wayne, and Jerry Root. The Quotable Lewis. Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2005. pages 237-238)

I am blown away by the fact Jesus called His followers friends as He revealed Himself to them by "ringing true" again and again.  He was consistent in His unswerving love and acceptance of them, even when one was a devil.  When Jesus Christ was first made known to me I was told He loved me and died on the cross to save me, and these facts were gladly accepted.  But as I have gone on with Jesus the more I appreciate other aspects of His life and ministry as well.  I have actually grown to know Him through His Word and the gift of the Holy Spirit.  It is not I who have stuck by Him but He has never left, forsaken, or forgotten Me.  He has kept me a friend according to His grace whilst I am a horrid friend!  He is the ultimate Friend and more than a friend:  He is my Saviour, Redeemer, Deliverer, Healer, Teacher, Shepherd, Master, and KING.  That God would be a Friend to sinners is awesome:  we shall be His treasured friends forever!