Friend

There are something's we do not get to choose. We do not get to choose our mother or our father. We don't get to choose our brothers or sisters or our sons and daughters these are relationships we do not get to choose. But there is one relationship we get to choose and that is, we choose our friends. It matters not if they choose us but we have chosen them to be our friends. If I am your friend, I chose to be your friend. If you are my friend you chose to be my friend. The child needs the parent and in later years the parent needs the child. The husband needs the wife and the wife needs the husband. But when we chose to be someone's friend we chose to give and not to receive. We chose to help and not to be helped. We chose to love and not to be loved. We chose to care and not to be cared for. A friend is the only relationship I know of that does not require another's acceptance. To be a husband means that another must accept the proposal. To be a wife means that there must be a proposal by another. But friendship is not that way; I can be your friend even if you aren't my friend. As I say that I am reminded of what Jesus told His disciples in
John 15:16
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.
Jesus chose Judas to be His friend but Judas chose not to be Jesus' friend
Matthew 26:50
And Jesus said unto him, Friend, wherefore art thou come? Then came they, and laid hands on Jesus, and took him. Judas could have been Jesus friend but he chose not to; may I say that was a poor choice on his part. The bible tells us that the friendlier we are the more friends we will have
Proverbs 18:24 A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother. Did you see it "A man that hath FRIENDS?" But we can show ourselves unfriendly and have fewer friends and we can be like Judas and refuse to be a friend of Jesus and that will be a bad choice just as it was for Judas. So today why not be a bit friendlier, who knows you may make a friend for life now that would be nice wouldn't it?

 

P.S. Next week I will be in Rockford, Illinois at the Reformers National Conference so I will not be writing. I would like to request your prayers for my wife and I, as we will be teaching in the conference along with our Pastor and his wife and our Assistant RU director and his wife. We will be back late Thursday night ready for our RU meeting on Friday night. Also please pray for me in the morning I will be talking to some tenth graders about drug addictions and the cure from a Biblical point of view. God bless until October 5!