the Fourth Week after Easter
Daily Devotionals
John Gossner's Treasury
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. John 15:15. And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them. Yea, I will rejoice over them to do them good. Jeremiah 32:40-41. I will be with him in trouble. Psalms 91:15.
All the attributes that Sirach and every friend requires in a friend are found in no such high degree in any being in heaven or on earth as in Jesus, the Friend of our hearts and souls. A faithful friend is a strong protection. A true friend can not be valued according to other things. "A true friend is the healing of life; and he is proved in time of need" (Sirach 6:15-17, Sirach 12:11). Of whom can all this be said but of Jesus, who just in the time of need is with us; who will deliver us in all need, in the need of death and of sin, when none of our friends are able to help us? In Proverbs 18:24, we read, ’’There is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother. " This can not be said so truly of anybody else as of our Friend at the right hand of God. He has sworn friendship and love for us forever; He has pledged Himself not to cease to do us good. It is His great delight, not only to do us good, but to be and to abide with us. He trusts us with the mysteries of His Father, keeps nothing back of all that which He has heard of His Father, but pours it out into the bosom of His friends. O my friend, be a friend of Jesus, and regard it as the greatest happiness to be able to be a friend of Jesus. The condition is found in John 15:14. In the 13th verse you read the greatest proof of His friendship for you, so that it would be the meanest sin to doubt if He is your friend, or will he your friend, if you want Him as such. For he who dies for me can not be my enemy; can not withdraw his hand from me, when I want to grasp it. Draw near to the cross and look into the heart of your friend. What do you read there?
Thy truth unchanged hath ever stood;
Thou savest those that on Thee call;
To them that seek Thee, Thou art good,
To them that find Thee, All in all.
