Devotional Song: … GO TO THIS LINK … Please take the time to take in a YouTube video of images and lyrics from Alan Jackson singing … WHAT A FRIEND WE HAVE IN JESUS … poignantly declaring the friendship all true Christians have with our Lord and Savior.
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Highlight Verse[s]: 1st Samuel 20:42 [NLT] …
42 At last Jonathan said to David, “Go in peace, for we have sworn loyalty to each other in the Lord’s name. The Lord is the witness of a bond between us and our children forever.”
… David and Jonathan had a covenant friendship which pictures the relationship Christians have with King Jesus.
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Highlight Passage [context]: 1st Samuel 20:35-42 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …
… The picture of the covenant friendship of Jonathan and David is a fore-shadow of the covenant friendship of Jesus with those He calls “friend.”
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Reference Passage #1 [NKJV] : … Proverbs 17:17 [NKJV] …
17 A friend is always loyal, and a brother is born to help in time of need.
… Easy to see the word picture from Solomon here, isn’t it?
Reference Passage #2 [NKJV] : … Philippians 2:3-4 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …
… God, thru Paul, proclaims the essence of friendship, which is reaching out to help others … as Jesus has done, is doing, and will always do for those who love/obey Him.
Reference Passage #3 [NKJV] : … John 15:14-15 [NLT] …
14 “You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me. …”
… Jesus to His disciples proclaiming the essence of His friendship with them (i.e., us).
Reference Passage #4 [NKJV] : … Hebrews 13:5 [NLT] …
5 … For God has said, … “I will never fail you. … I will never abandon you.” [also in Joshua 1:5]
… God’s promise to His “friends.”
My Devotional Journal: Today's ODB author, Keila Ochoa, uses a personal reference to teach about the most loyal of Friends, … King Jesus. … The ODB author wrote: A dear friend of mine sent me a text message that said, “I’m so glad we can tell each other the good, the bad, and the ugly!” We have been friends for many years, and we have learned to share our joys and our failures. We recognize we are far from perfect, so we share our struggles but we also rejoice in each other’s successes. …
Good friends don’t abandon us when external circumstances change. They stay with us through the good and the bad days. Good friends also may point us to God in the ugly days, when we may feel tempted to walk away from our Lord.
The friendship between Jonathan and David (see highlight passage) was just such a friendship, … a covenant bond in their faith of God. And their friendship was a biblical fore-shadow of the New Covenant relationship (i.e., “friendship”) we have with Jesus.
I’m praying today that all who read here are real friends with our Lord; but Jesus made it clear, in His word and especially to His disciples in John 15:14-15, that His real friends obey and follow Him (also John 14:21). It is only then that our covenant bond (i.e., friendship) with our Lord can manifest itself.
Real friends, … loyal/giving friends, … are hard to come by, aren’t they? We’re fortunate to even have one or two in this lifetime among our human relationships. But when we know Jesus as Lord/Savior, we have the “bestest” of all Friends; and He will never leave us or forsake us (see Hebrews 13:5.
So, as Alan Jackson so poignantly sings (linked above), let’s go to our Friend, Jesus, in prayer today.
My Prayer Today: Heavenly Father, … Lord Jesus, thank You for being my BESTEST Friend. … Amen
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.
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