What A Friend!

  Friend. When hearing this word, it's easy to overlook its true meaning. "Well, sure, I've got plenty of friends," you may reason. "Some are better than others. But why is it important? And 'What a Friend We Have in Jesus'? What is that supposed to mean?" Maybe you think the word is demeaning, and the phrase "What a Friend..." puts Jesus in a box. "But He's so much more than a friend!" you protest. And you're right. But maybe the problem here isn't the value of the word "friend." Maybe it's our perception of that value.
                 
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 Last night, I was lying in bed, and--if you're anything like me you'll understand this--my body was ready to go to sleep, but my brain wasn't. So I started thinking about the lesson from my Acteens class in Sunday night church. Now if you don't know what Acteens is,  it's a girls Bible study class for 7th through 12th grade, and it's a really great opportunity for the girls of my youth group to gather together in God's Word. (And I may or may not be getting paid to say this!) Anyway, last night, we started a new summer Bible study about Jesus and His love for others. The passage we were studying was Matthew 22:36-40, which says, "'Teacher, what is the greatest commandment in the Law?' Jesus replied: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it. Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.'"

  I know you may be reading this right now and thinking, "Ok so we need to love God and be a friend to others. But what does this have to do with God being a friend to us?" Well, one great thing about the Bible is that everything fits together perfectly and precisely. So why is Jesus our friend? Because being a friend is an act of love and, as 1 John 4:19 says, "We love because He first loved us." A friend in its truest form is someone who selflessly puts the interests of another before their own. And what better way is there to show friendship than by sacrificing life itself to do what is best for others. Surely, the fact that Jesus really is a faithful companion is proven even more in John 15:13, "Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends." That right there shows us beyond any doubt that we are all personal friends of the Creator of the Universe! How amazing and wonderful is our God, that He would know and love the humblest of souls who call on His name! God knows that we will never fully grasp everything He is, so He gives us a name for His mercy that everyone can understand. We all possess an innate desire to feel special and loved, to know that we mean something, and our God is the supplier of all needs. To put it in simplest terms, we want a friend, and that's exactly who He is. What a God! What a Savior! What a friend!