IN CHRIST IS LIFE
Christ & You & Friends
in Christ you will find a solution. It was Flor ence Personeus who wrote:
■MBost of us want friends. There’s a majestic comfort in knowing there is someone we can confide in, can trust beyond the slightest doubt. W e need never pretend in the company of a friend. Pretense is the flimsy tinsel we often use in making new acquaintances but it is an art unknown between friends. Psychologist George H . Moore tells us just how important friendship is on page 10 of this issue. On the opposite page Hans Stierle tells how enormously empty his life was with out friends. To have a friend is indeed a basic human need. And because friendship is so precious it is, like a rare gem, often counter feited. In our time a book has sold millions telling how to win friends and influence peo ple. Here is pretense, open-faced and shame less. The theme of this popular-type friendship is clean-cut and brutal: Cultivate people for what you can get out o f them. These are the type of friends John Clare wrote about, "M y friends forsake me like a memory lost.” And it was to this same type of friend that the wise Sophocles had reference to when he said, "Mortals most find friendship an unstable anchorage.” It is this unstable an chorage that so often brings crushing disillu sionment. When those we trusted are gone like a memory lost we are prone to draw with in ourselves and there to find infinite loneliness. All of us experience this empty loneliness at some time. And perhaps it is at this very point that God knocks gently on our heart’s door. Recall that Jesus Christ said, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.” Here is friendship that will not . . . cannot fail. N o matter what has happened in the past; no matter what the present condition; no matter how people have disappointed you —
People often disappoint us, Fail to understand or care; Then what joy to hear Christ whisper, "Cast on Me thy every care.” How can life he sad and lonely, When you’ve Jesus in your soul? His great love doth never waver, While the endless ages roll.
Here indeed is a Friend who is above and beyond the inherent faults and failings of man. Here is God seeking us in all our loneli- .ness and offering us a solution that cannot fail. Recall His tender words, “ Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.” I sup pose there never was a thing worthwhile that didn’t have an " i f ” connected with it. And so this promise of our Saviour — " I f ye do whatsoever I command you.” What are His commands? Read the Gospel of St. John through several times and find out firsthand. I think you’ll come to this conclusion: Jesus Christ simply wants each of us to come to Him for forgiveness in simple child-like faith. The Bible says, "H e that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.” Trust Him right now as your Saviour and Master and immediately your relationship with God becomes right. And then when earthly friends forsake you, you can sing with countless millions Joseph Scriven’s beautiful hymn, "W ha t a Friend W e Have in Jesus” :
Are we weak and heavy laden Cumbered with a load o f care? Precious Saviour, still our refuge, Take it to the Lord in prayer. Do thy friends despise, forsake thee? Take it to the Lord in prayer, In His arms He’ll take and shield thee, Thou wilt find a solace there.
— L .H .
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