January-February - The Gospel Magazine

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The Gospel Magazine
For Younger Readers
: CARINE MACKENZIE
FRIENDS
IF You HAVE A BEST FRIEND at school, I am sure you really enjoy playing
together. You may have lots of different friends thai you spend-timi withl
Perhaps with one friend you play football and with inother you exchange
books and with another you go to the swimming pool. It is great to have a friend
to sit beside on the school bus or to phone up to talk o1e, a difficult piece
of homework.
A real friend will be loyal and kind to you not just when you are happy and
successful and have something that you can share but also *hen you are going
through a difficult time. when you are in trouble you often find but wnJyoui
true friends are.
when David was in a great deal of trouble, he found out what a true friend
Jonathan was. King Saul was jearous of David and wanted to kill him. Jonathan,
Saul's son heard aboulhi! father's plan and put himself in considerable dangei
in order to warn David. Because of Jonathin's loyalty and friendstrip, oaiid
was able to escape.
We may have many close friends but there is one friend who is the best one of
all. The Bible tells us that "there is a friend that sticks closer than a brother" and
that friend is the Lord Jesus christ. our school friends may let us down, but
Jesus never will. our friends sometimes have to move away to another to*n, but
Jesus has promised "never to leave us or forsake us,'.
when Jesus is our friend, He wants us to spentime with Him. He wants us to
speak to Him in prayer and He wants us to listen to Him as He speaks to us
through His word, the Bible. If Jesus is our friend it will hurt us to irear people
taking His name in vain. If Jesus is our friend, we will want to stand up for Him
and defend Him. when Jesus is our friend we will want to tqll other piople how
wonderful He is and introduce Him to people we meet.
Andrew met the Lord Jesus one day and realised quickly that He was the
Messiah, the one sent by God to be the'saviour. one of the first things Andrew
did was to hurry to find his brother (and friend) Peter and telttrim about Jesus.
He then brought Peter to meet Jesus for himself.
Jesus was described as "the friend of sinners". we are all sinners but Jesus
graciously wants to be our friend. If we are the friends of Jesus, He wants us to
obey Him. "You are my fnends if you do whatsoever I command you,' (John
15:14). If we disobey His word and do not believe in Him then we cannot call
ourselves His friends.
It is lovely to have good ordinary friends but it is vitally important for us to
have Jesus as the friend above all others.