Friends Forever

Tikkun Global

Jerusalem, Israel

Does anyone want to have friends and be a friend? Does anyone want to be a friend to Yeshua? Is being a friend important?

Yeshua said that the end purpose of discipleship is to be His friends. “No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends” – John 15:15. We were created to be friends with God and friends with one another. We raised our children with the hope of their eventually becoming our best friends.

But being a friend is not so easy. “Many a man will declare his own goodness, but a faithful man, who can find?” – Proverbs 20:6. It takes faithfulness to be a good friend. Many of us are too caught up in work and ministry to be able to take time for relationship building.

In the story of the Good Samaritan, Yeshua emphasized that the issue is not who our neighbor is but whether we ourselves are acting as a good neighbor (Luke 10:36). [My mother-in-law used to tell her daughters, “Don’t look for the right man; be the right woman.”]

The test of a real friend is whether he will stay with you in difficult times. There is a price to pay in order to forge friendships that will last. “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity” – Proverbs 17:17. Yeshua paid the ultimate price to be friends with us.

God gives us time, resources and opportunities in this lifetime. One of the goals of this life is to build friendships that will last forever. “Make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when it fails, they may receive you into an everlasting home” – Luke 16:9. Yeshua was not speaking of using money manipulatively in order to “buy” people’s loyalty. He was emphasizing the priority of making “forever-type” friends and using all the means at our disposal to do so.

Everything in this life will pass away. Only true loving relationships will last forever.