Somebody you trust with your heart

(note: still working on new article and will post tomorrow. In the meantime . . . 

Another old hymn from the 1800s goes:

Jesus is all the world to me,
  And true to Him I’ll be.
Oh, how could I this Friend deny
  When He’s so true to me?
Following Him I know I’m right;
  He watches o’er me day and night.
Following Him by day and night,
  He’s my Friend.

Yet another hymn from the 1800s, "I Never Walk Alone," has as its refrain, "With such a Friend to comfort and to guide me, I never, no, I never walk alone.

Jesus says in John 15:13, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

“In this chapter, Jesus Christ and the apostles have left the Upper Room and are walking on the way to the Garden," explains Richard Jordan. "Christ continues the conversation with, ‘Ye are my friends if you do whatsoever I command you.’

“In other words, a friend is somebody who can think and do like Christ thinks. Verse 15 says, ‘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.’

“A servant doesn’t know some things but the friend does. A friend is somebody who’s as your own soul. You pour out your inner being to them; you tell them what’s inside, what’s in your thinking, what’s in your heart.

“Jesus said, ‘I’ve called you friends because I’ve told you. I haven’t sent you out without a sense of what’s going on. I’ve communicated with you all the things the Father has given to me.’

*****

"A friend is someone who gets information that no one else has access to. Now you know that in personal relationships, but when it’s talking about Scripture, the idea here is that to be a friend is you’re going to get all of the information.

“Now the reason that’s important…come with me to the Book of James. James 2:21. The first person in the Bible ever called ‘the friend of God’ is Abraham.

"The reason he’s called that is because Abraham obeyed some specific instructions that God gave him, and when God gave him information that he hadn’t given to anybody else, Abraham stood on that information.

"It allowed him to be called ‘the friend of God.’ Not just the servant who doesn’t know what his master does, but the friend who is taking action based upon something the Father told him to do.

“II Chronicles 20:7 is where he’s called ‘the friend of God.’ You see when Abraham is called the friend of God, he’s called that in connection with his seed.

*****

“If you were an alien and a stranger, as Ephesians 2:11 describes Gentiles in time past, that’s as opposite as you can be from being a friend, and the reason God made this distinction between the Gentiles down here and the circumcision (Israel)--those people up there were His friends and these people down here were aliens and strangers.

“The people in Israel were a friend and it had to do with the fact God had given them some information He didn’t give anybody else.

“One of the great passages about that is in Exodus 33, where God was communicating to Israel what he was going to do: [11] And the LORD spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. And he turned again into the camp: but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, departed not out of the tabernacle.
[12] And Moses said unto the LORD, See, thou sayest unto me, Bring up this people: and thou hast not let me know whom thou wilt send with me. Yet thou hast said, I know thee by name, and thou hast also found grace in my sight.
[13] Now therefore, I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, shew me now thy way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight: and consider that this nation is thy people.
[14] And he said, My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest.
[15] And he said unto him, If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence.
[16] For wherein shall it be known here that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? is it not in that thou goest with us? so shall we be separated, I and thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth.
[17] And the LORD said unto Moses, I will do this thing also that thou hast spoken: for thou hast found grace in my sight, and I know thee by name.
[18] And he said, I beseech thee, shew me thy glory.
[19] And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the LORD before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy. ”

*****

“A verse that demonstrates how the term ‘friend’ is used in the Bible is in Proverbs 17:9: ‘He that covereth a transgression seeketh love; but he that repeateth a matter separateth very friends.’

“Notice gossip and evil reports separate friends. Well, the implication there is a friend is someone who’s not separated from you, who’s one with you, who’s a companion. Verse 17 says, ‘A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.’

“A friend is somebody where circumstances and your conduct and that kind of stuff isn’t really the issue. They have a value and esteem for you and they’re going to love you regardless of what the circumstances in your life are; regardless what the adversity that comes in life will be.

“Proverbs 18:24 says, ‘A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.’

“It’s kind of a two-way street and ‘there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.’ The context is found in verse 22: ‘Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the LORD.’ Who he’s talking about is really your spouse.

“A friend is somebody who will be more loyal to you and value and esteem you more than a family member. My point is friendship is something esteemed very highly in God’s Word.

“Probably the most famous friend quote in the Scripture is when Judas approaches the Lord Jesus Christ in the Garden to betray Him and the Lord Jesus Christ looks at him and He says, ‘Hail, friend.’ That title that Jesus is using comes out of a verse in Psalm 41:9: ‘Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me.’

“Christ quoted part of that verse in John 13 when He was with His apostles in the Upper Room.

“This is a song of David, and when David historically is writing it, he’s talking about Ahitophel, his friend. Prophetically it turns out to be talking about the Lord Jesus Christ and the one who’s going to betray him.

“So what’s a friend? It’s somebody I’ve trusted: 'Here’s somebody I’ve had close communion with.' He’s closer than a brother. 'Here’s somebody I trust with my heart and here’s somebody I sit at the table . . . I share what belongs to me with this person and if it’s mine, it’s theirs. And if I have it, then they can consume it. They’re with me.'

“What it means to live in a consciousness of being accepted in the Beloved, first of all, means you have a consciousness of God’s love for you in Christ. And it’s what ‘the love of Christ constrains us’ means. It gives you the capacity to have a closeness and intimacy with Him to bring everything He is into the details of your life.

“Let it be His life. When you live in a consciousness of His love, it gives you an insight."