As someone who has moved multiple times in life, true friends are hard to find. Whether it was moving from New Jersey to Delaware in Elementary School or from Delaware to Ohio in college, when you do finally relocate, you will find out who your real friends truly are. When none of them reach out to you after your departure, your friendship was more of an acquaintance than anything else. Perhaps, this is the inspiration behind Hawk Nelson’s song Friend Like That.
The man of many friends [a friend of all the world] will prove himself a bad friend, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother, Proverbs 18:24.
King Solomon wrote about what a true friend meant to him in the passage above. Through the years, Christian artists have reflected upon this topic with songs by Geoff Moore, Michael W. Smith, and Steven Curtis Chapman. When a friend does stick closer than a brother, this kind of relationship becomes a spiritual treasure. As a new year begins, may the Holy Spirit inspire you to find a friend like that in 2023.
Whenever I listen to music, there are certain expressions or lyrics that I overlook. Such is the case for the attached song which talks about God’s faithfulness and our forgetfulness as imperfect human beings. This Geoff Moore song reminded me of something the apostle Paul wrote to the Church at Rome. God shows his faithfulness in the passage below, willing to send Jesus to die for forgetful sinners.
But God shows and clearly proves His [own] love for us by the fact that while we were still sinners, Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One) died for us. 9 Therefore, since we are now justified ([f]acquitted, made righteous, and brought into right relationship with God) by Christ’s blood, how much more [certain is it that] we shall be saved by Him from the indignation and wrath of God, Romans 5:8-9.
Meanwhile, all Christians have had their own Garden of Eden moment. A time when you were clearly introduced to and knew what God expected of you. And yet, a clouded mind, tempted and caught off guard by a supernatural Devil caused you to do just the opposite of what God desires. The apostle Paul speaks to this point in Romans 7:15-18, baffling one of the godliest men to walk the face of the earth.
And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat the fruit from the trees of the garden, 3 Except the fruit from the tree which is in the middle of the garden. God has said, You shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die. 4 But the serpent said to the woman, You shall not surely die, 5 For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing the difference between good and evil and blessing and calamity, Genesis 3:2-5.
Subsequently, every day there is an internal war that takes place, faithfulness verses forgetfulness. Paul not already considered himself one of the greatest sinners of all time in 1 Timothy 1:15 but explains this tug of war between our own sinful nature and Holy Spirit in Galatians 5:16-18. Therefore, if you want to avoid senior moments of spiritual forgetfulness, keep in step with God’s Spirit, Galatians 5:25.
ExpressYourself4Him 