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Proverbs 17:17 tells us that a friend loveth at all times and a brother is born for adversity. That’s the definition but as we know, when the going gets tough you find out who your real friends are.
People become your friend because you have money or offer things they want or need in their life. Sometimes it’s because we have something in common like sports or politics. But a real friend loves you without need of a reason.
Abraham was called a friend of God. By definition, Abraham loved God and God loved Abraham. Jesus called His disciples friends. He loved them; He cared whether they perished. He loved them at all times. There wasn’t a moment that He didn’t love them. He said he was their brother and what according to scripture is a brother born for? Adversity. When calamity strikes your life you need a friend; you need a brother.
Christ was born to save us from sin or adversity. That’s why Christ was born. We were without strength to save ourselves; we needed an older brother to save us from the things that try to destroy our soul, the things that are adverse to our eternal security.
Proverbs 18:24 “A man that has friends must show himself friendly; and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.”
Abraham must have showed himself friendly to God. He wanted a relationship with God. We have to want a relationship with God if we are to call ourselves followers of Christ. Jesus is our older brother. He was tempted in all the ways we have been tempted. The difference between Jesus and us is that His relationship with His father had never been broken. They were in one accord. Jesus prayed daily, conferring with God about everything. At the close of every day it was “not His will be done, but the Father’s will be done.
So Jesus as the older brother knows what’s ahead; He’s been there, done that. We can trust in Him because it is He that is the friend that sticks closer than a brother. He can be trusted. God wanted us to have the same closeness with Him that His son Jesus has. God wanted to restore us and for that to happen, the older brother had to pay the price the Father demanded.
God had been dishonored,rejected, despised, and His authority questioned resulting in the same declaration that fell from the lips of Satan; we wanted to be the god of our own lives. We knew the difference between good and evil. We were good; God was evil.
Jesus was born for that sole purpose of redeeming the world, making a way for mankind to be acceptable to God. And who could pay that price but the very son of the living God?
We all (hopefully) have friends. The best friends are near to us. We do things with and for each other. We’re to love them as Christ loved us, to the end, closer than a brother. As imitators of Christ, we look at our friends not with continually noting of their short-comings but with eyes that see them as precious in the site of God. If they’re unsaved, we want their salvation. If they are brothers in Christ then we are to encourage them and they us in our service to God.
So I encourage everyone to go that “extra mile” in service to your friends. Love them as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it. The way the world knows we are followers of Christ is because of our sincere love one for another. Feed your friend if he is hungry, give him drink if they are thirsty, clothe them if they are cold, and visit them in prison if the world puts them there. Love them. That’s how we gain the favor of God.