I’ve been working on another post about spiritual warfare lately, sort of struggling through it.  I am pretty sure that it will get posted on here one of these days; though right now there is something else I want to write about that I think is even more important than understanding our enemy—it is knowing and understanding our Friend!

Jesus taught His disciples, “This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.  Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.  You are My friends if you do whatever I command you.  No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you” (John 15:12-15).

It is such an amazing blessing to be friends with Jesus! —I recognize that some wish to burden us with additional rules keying off Jesus’ words, “You are my friends if you do whatever I command you”, yet slipping blithely past “this is My commandment, that you love one another.”  Or, like the religious leaders at the time, some lay “aside the commandment of God” or redefine the commandment of God in order to promote the traditions of men.  (Mark 7:8, 9)  However, I love that there are no secrets between friends—all things that Jesus heard from His Father, He reveals to those who are His friends!

I think it is interesting that the apostle Paul related knowing Jesus with loss—“Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith…” (Philippians 3:8, 9). 

There are different kinds of loss, though; the kind of loss we willingly release to gain something better and the kind of loss where something, or someone, is taken away from us—against our will and often to our anguish or regret.  Almost everyone, and some people at a very early age, have experienced loss—it is just a symptom of our fallen planet.  However, those of us who know Jesus have a promise and the hope of an eternity without grief.

I remember once sitting in a small “prayer room”—a connecting passageway between a little Christian ministry and a bar located on Haight Street in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district.  I was praying and reading the Psalms and I sensed that my praise was somewhat hollow and I felt that my “religion” was shallow.  My “faith” was untested; I hadn’t grasped the significance of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross for me because I was so caught up in the chains of legalism—and I couldn’t begin to comprehend the gifts of our Savior and the awesomeness of God.

I turned 65 this past week and many years have passed since the day I sat there on those pillows with my Bible open on my lap, reading the Psalmist’s words of praise.  As I considered a friend’s comment about my joy at the recent birth of a grandson—my response was to say that I am truly blessed!  And I am, no doubt about it.  However, I did not get to this place in my life without experiencing sorrow and loss.  My son and his wife did not get to that day when they held their son without traveling through valleys of grief and sadness.  However, we can say with confidence that the Lord is good and those who trust in Him are blessed (Psalm 34:8); that “the Lord is faithful, who [establishes us] and [guards us] from the evil one” (2 Thessalonians 3:3).

We do not treat suffering lightly, because we recognize that our Savior identifies with our anguish—He wept at Lazarus’ tomb, grieving with Mary and Martha yet knowing He would soon call His friend from the grave.  The apostle Paul refers to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ as “the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation…” (2 Corinthians 1:3, 4).  He does not leave us or forsake us.  Ever.  

I do not mourn the loss I experienced through gaining a relationship with Jesus apart from the law.  Since that day when I sat on a pile of pillows in a dark passageway, my praise to God became solid through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and the shallowness of my religion was replaced by new dimensions of faith in the complete work of my Savior on Calvary.  With Paul, I proclaim that the excellency of knowing Christ far exceeds all else; being found in Him with a righteousness from God through faith—not through the law lest I should boast.

So yes, I am truly blessed, and this is my confession:

“Praise the Lord!

Praise the Lord, O my soul!

While I live I will praise the Lord;

I will sing praises to my God while I have my being…

Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help,

Whose hope is in the Lord his God, who made heaven and earth,

The sea, and all that is in them;

Who keeps truth forever,

Who executes justice for the oppressed,

Who gives food to the hungry.

The Lord gives freedom to the prisoners.

The Lord opens the eyes of the blind;

The Lord raises those who are bowed down;

The Lord loves the righteous.

The Lord watches over the strangers;

He relieves the fatherless and widow;

But the way of the wicked He turns upside down.

The Lord shall reign forever—

Your God, O Zion, to all generations.

Praise the Lord!”

(Psalm 146:1-2, 5-10)