BEST FRIEND?

When it comes to a Best Friend it should always be Jesus in the life of a Christian. If you are Christian and you don't know Jesus as your Best Friend please make it a priority.

But don't turn Jesus into an imaginary friend and create Him from your imagination. A Best friend is not someone that will always agree with you. A BEST FRIEND is someone who will tell you the Truth in love even though it hurts to hear it. 

"Faithful are the wounds of a friend; But the kisses of an enemy are deceitful."

Proverbs 27:6 

If you are married your Best Friend still needs to be Jesus and then your spouse. If you don't know your spouse as your 2nd Best friend next to Jesus do your best to make it happen. 

Other than that the Scriptures counsel us to have the SAME love one for another. In our youth we learn childish and selfish behaviors that teach us to have EXCLUSIVE relationships and a he or she is MY Best Friend and mine only mentality; as if that particular friend being our Best makes us something superior. We learn to boast that so in so is MY Best Friend thus declaring we have something others only wish they could have by having this person's acceptance. 

This mentality should be discouraged in the youth and by adulthood we should have grown out of it. Yes, it's true we more easily click with certain people, we feel we can trust some more than others and we naturally feel more of a connection with some. Yet, this should never validate a childish/selfish all exclusive friendship. 

In Philippians we learn of the mind of Christ:

"If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, fulfil ye my joy, that ye be LIKE-MINDED, having the SAME LOVE, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:"

Philippians 2:1‭-‬7 

We are to have the SAME LOVE, the love of Christ one for another, not a, "I love you the most, so I am going to treat you better than everyone else and prefer you above everyone else." That is a selfish heart not a self-less heart. A self-less heart takes all of God's children into consideration. On the contrary this is the kind of love we should have for each other not just for some among us or ONE among us:

"But we were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherisheth her children: so being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were dear unto us."

1 Thessalonians 2:7‭-‬8 

Our love for One another should be as deep as Christ's is for us; that we should be willing to die for one another. Christ didn't die for ONE but for all.

"and that he died for ALL, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again."

2 Corinthians 5:15 

When we live for Christ we must live to love ALL with the same love as He did. 

This comes with challenges but when Christ is in the place He is worthy of, that being, Our Best Friend, He can make it easy for us to love others; because He teaches us by His example to be self-less and when we are self-less it is much easier to love.

This non- exclusive love is the power behind the name Christian. Are you familiar with the song, "We are One in the Spirit... they will know we are Christians by our love"

Jesus Himself said, 

"By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another."

John 13:35 

He didn't say if you each have a Best friend you love more than others, or a certain group of people you love more than others, His Disciples went on to confirm the mind of Christ by passing down His teachings:

"that there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another."

1 Corinthians 12:25 

"For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them."   Luke 6:32 

The Christian love should exceed the love of a natural man/woman. Not only are we commanded to love one another with the same sacrificial love but also our enemies. And this my friends is the mind of Christ and the example that He gave us through His living testimony. 

Seek Him for a heart to love like He loves, and don't back out when you experience the suffering it takes to love as He loves. No pain, no gain, is a true saying.  

Let the testimony of Christ inspire you and compell you to love self-lessly

Please teach your children that if they want a Best Friend that seat in their heart belongs only to Christ and as for anyone else they desire friendship with, teach them to have the same sacrificial love for all their acquaintances and not to prefer one above another. If they can learn this when they are young what a glory it will be for them to carry it into adulthood and to live a life of self-less love.