September 22, 2022 … We All Need Friends …

Berry Patch Devotions in 2021 - Day 265 

Devotional Song: ... GO TO THIS LINK ...  Please take the time to take in song and lyrics from Michael W Smith singing …  I Will Be Your Friend … poignantly singing of how we all need friends and to be friends to one another as fellow Christians. 

 

Close Christian friends ... 

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Highlight Passage: … Romans 16:16 [ESV] …  

16 Greet each other with a sacred kiss. All the churches of Christ send you their greetings. 

…Paul exhorts fellow Christians to seek out and develop fellow Christians as friends to share the charge to spread the gospel throughout the world.                           

Highlight Passage (Context): … Romans 16:3-16 [NLT] …  USE THIS LINK … 

… Late in his ministry life, the Apostle Paul, affirms a number of Christian friends who’ve meant a lot to him, having supported and helped Paul in his mission to share the gospel in this world. .  

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Reference Passage: … Proverbs 17:17, 18:24, 27:17 [NLT] …  USE THIS LINK …

… God, thru Solomon’s wisdom teaches about the importance and necessity of having REAL friends in life.                

Reference Passage: … Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 [NLT] …  USE THIS LINK … 

… Solomon, later in his life, teaching other believers (and us) the importance of having friends who will stand with us in the challenges of life. 

Reference Passage: … John 15:13 [ESV] …  

13 There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 

… Jesus teaches His disciples in the upper room, just before He goes to the cross, the importance of having friends who would die for us. 

Reference Passage: …  1Thessalonians 5:11 [ESV] …  

11 So encourage each other and build each other up, just as you are already doing. 

… Paul encourages and exhorts fellow Christians to encourage and edify one another as Christians friends in this life. 

                                                                                

My Devotional Journal: Today's Our Daily Bread author, Mike Wittmer… AT THIS LINK … related a story about a famous sports-writer, Dave Kindred, who in retirement found great joy and fellowship getting to know and writing about a girl’s high school basketball team in his home town paper, showing how we all need a community of close friends in this life.      

And, oh how this 78 year old Christian warrior, who has been on the front lines of spiritual warfare most of my later life affirms the Dave Kindred story.   As Michael W Smith sings in the linked song and the References Scriptures above attest, we Christians need to come together as Christ’s Body to lift each other up and band together in Christian friendship.  

I have brothers and sisters in Christ who pray for me and my wife in our mission in life (See this link).  So, when the Apostle Paul writes of his grateful affirmation for his Christian friends in the highlight passage, I so identify with the Apostle’s feelings about fellow Christian friends who encouraged and edified him in this life.  And any of you fellow Christian friends, who might be reading this: … i.e., those whom I meet with weekly or those who pray for my wife and me as we do ministry together in this life, … may we send you - as our dear friends in Christ - a heart-felt thank you.  

And I’m stopping here, as your Christian friend, to pray that all reading here with me have - or are seeking to develop - close Christian friendships to stand with you in the challenges of this life which will be getting stronger and and stronger until Jesus comes for us one day.                 

My THANKFULNESS: ... Oh, Abba Father, thank You, King Jesus, … for giving my wife and me dear - and close - friends. … those who lift us up before Your throne of grace to help us carry out Your calling, Lord.   

My Prayer Today: Oh Abba Father, ... King Jesus, ... . I pray that all reading here will join me, … to be grateful for all our fellow Christian friends who lift us up daily for Your enabling grace, Lord.    .… Amen

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Blogger Note:  Everyday during this year, my daily devotional blogs are influenced by the reading and study of the online devotional blog entitled “Our Daily Bread,” distributed online via email by RBC Ministries.  If you GO TO THIS LINK on the date of my blog, you can read/study the ODB blogs; or you can subscribe to the blog via email at that site.