Within the picture is a very nice poem. It's description of a "Special Friend" is one of the best I've ever heard and worth remembering. During the course of my life, I have had all sorts of friends; acquaintances that became genuine friends, "phony friends", fair weather friends, good friends, best buds and of course BFF's.
Beyond all these are my Christian friends. Some are closer than others, but we all have one thing in common- The love of Jesus our LORD. We do everything we can to follow Jesus and genuinely love one another as well. Although, some of us seem to do these things better than others; we all try.
Jesus has said:
John, Chapter 15 (WEB)
12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another, even as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends, if you do whatever I command you. (emphasis added, vss. 12-14) 15 No longer do I call you servants, for the servant doesn’t know what his lord does. But I have called you friends, for everything that I heard from my Father, I have made known to you. 16 You didn’t choose me, but I chose you and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain; that whatever you will ask of the Father in my name, he may give it to you.
17 “I command these things to you, that you may love one another. 18 If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, since I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. 20 Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his lord.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. 21 But they will do all these things to you for my name’s sake, because they don’t know him who sent me. 22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have had sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. 23 He who hates me, hates my Father also. 24 If I hadn’t done among them the works which no one else did, they wouldn’t have had sin. But now they have seen and also hated both me and my Father. 25 But this happened so that the word may be fulfilled which was written in their law, ‘They hated me without a cause.’
Who are your friends? If, among them you can honestly say, Jesus and his friends- you will be blessed!!! The thing is... these special friendships will last for eternity. I wonder, what other friendships will last this long?
Just think about it, OK?