My Best Friend Jesus

“How sweet are Thy words unto my taste! Yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth.”  Psalm 119:103

Several years ago, I taught some elementary school age children in Vacation Bible School.  I began one of the lessons by saying, “We’ve all heard the story of Mary, Joseph, and Baby Jesus…”, but before I could finish my introduction, a little girl about seven or eight years old raised her hand and said, “I haven’t”.  I was somewhat caught off guard to hear that a child had never heard the Christmas story.  I guess I am just naive.  I heard of a similar encounter when a niece, who is a pastor’s wife, and her daughter were shopping in New York City.  My niece found a t-shirt with a picture of Noah’s ark and several different pairs of animals printed on the front.  She took it to the cashier to pay for it, and the cashier looked at it and said something like, “That’s cute.  What is it?”, which indicated that she was completely unfamiliar with the subject matter.  My niece explained about Noah’s ark, but the young woman said she had never heard the story of how God destroyed the world except for Noah, his family, and all the different species of animals.  As I was surprised at the little girl who had never heard the Christmas story, my niece was surprised at this young woman having never heard about Noah.

I was reared in a Christian home, taken to church every Sunday, was taught the Bible in Sunday School by some dedicated teachers who loved the Lord, listened to the preacher preach, “Thus sayeth the LORD”, and sang the old southern gospel songs.  Every Christmas the children would present a play about Jesus’ birth.  I was naive enough to think that everyone was brought up like I was in an environment in which we honored the Lord and trusted in Him to help us live our lives and take us to heaven when we died.  After all, the southern part of the U.S. is what used to be referred to as the “Bible belt” because worship and church attendance were certainly more widespread than today.  Believers were the backbone of the community.  As previously stated, I am still somewhat naive, but I have learned that lots of folks grew up in a different environment than I did, both physical and spiritual.  According to the above two examples, there are many folks who have very little or no knowledge of the Lord, salvation, heaven, hell, or God’s word.

The lack of knowledge concerning God and His word makes me sad.  There is a lot of false teaching as there was in the first century when Christianity was just getting a foothold among earth’s inhabitants.  However, first century believers did not have God’s word readily available to them as we do now through print and in digital formats.  If people only knew what a friend we have in Jesus, to borrow the words from a very old Christian song.  People desire to have friends, but in this day and age, good, trustworthy friends are few and far between.  Even if one has a good friend, the chances are that friendship won’t last due to relocation, a falling out, death, or a drifting apart for various reasons.  I had a few good friends in high school, but one was killed two years after graduation, some have moved far away, and one who was my best friend I haven’t seen or communicated with for years.  We don’t intend to no longer be classified as friends, but many things cause us to make changes in life, marriage, kids, careers, etc.  We make new friends, but then no longer see them due to many factors.  It is very rare to have a life-long earthly friend from childhood to death.  Even relatives part ways and see each other only at funerals.  It is what it is.

Proverbs 18:24 tells us that “A man that has friends must show himself friendly: and there is a Friend that sticks closer than a brother”.  It is good when brothers and sisters are close particularly when the parents have passed away.  However, in some families, siblings have nothing to do with each other for hurtful reasons or sometimes petty reasons.  It is sad when families can’t get along.  Folks should be able to depend on their families, but that is not always possible.  Thus, the relationships between friends and relatives are not always as God intended.

Scripture is sometimes defined as “God’s mind as revealed to man”.  Just think.  Everyone has the opportunity to personally know the Creator of heaven, earth, man, and woman, the One who hung the stars in place, and the One who cares about each individual to the extent that He died to pay the penalty for our sins and give us new life.  How many of your friends or relatives would take a bullet for you?  Paul wrote in Romans 5:7-8 that there is a very slight chance that a person would give his or her life for another person who was righteous, and an even lesser chance for one to give his or her life for a good person.  However, Christ died for unrighteous, bad, sinful, wretched, and vile sinners, and that includes us.  Shouldn’t we all desire a Friend like that?  Why wouldn’t all people desire the Lord to be his or her Best Friend Forever?