Friday, August 12, 2022
We continue our mini-series, The Breastplate of Righteousness, in our Wonderfully Weird Armor of God series by introducing the next element of God’s Love, friendship. Romans 5:17 shares, “If one man’s sin brought a reign of death—that’s Adam’s legacy—how much more will those who receive grace in abundance and the free gift of redeeming justice reign in life by means of one other man—Jesus the Anointed (Voice).” You put on the breastplate of righteousness by trusting what God has done for you through your best friend, Jesus. It’s through Jesus that righteousness can be understood and put on correctly. Please understand God accepts you and enjoys you because of what your best friend Jesus did on Mount Calvary and threw his resurrection power – “What a Friend we have in Jesus!
A heavenly type of friendship with Jesus or otherwise is where convictions, habits, and outcomes intertwine in our unique special relationship with God and people. A good relationship develops over something in common that longs for camaraderie. As C.S. Lewis so eloquently said, “Friendship is always about something, never about nothing; those who have nothing can share nothing; those who are going nowhere can have no fellow travelers [friends].” Let me ask, is your friendship with Jesus something or nothing?
I hear Christians say all the time that Jesus’s friendship is a top priority in their life, and he is their best friend. To make this valid claim means to agree with what is expected in the Christian faith that aligns with Jesus’ convictions, habits, and outcomes. Jesus said, “I’m always about my Father’s business (Luke 2:49).” To have Jesus as your best friend means knowing, understanding, and applying God the Father’s teachings, starting with the Ten Commandments and so on. To call Jesus our best friend implies having the same convictions as he did.
Another sign Jesus is your best friend; your character is being developed and redeemed through the habits or virtues of the one you call your good companion. Jesus made it clear that if we are to be best friends, then one must keep the habits produced through what I call the Wonderfully Weird Commands of Christ. Jesus said, “if you love me, keep my commands (John 14:15 NIV).” To be best friends with Jesus is to use his teachings of maturing character to reflect God's Righteousness properly. One last aspect of being Jesus' best friend is aiming your life goals at the common undertakings of Jesus to experience his outcomes. Those goals are bringing eternal life to people, getting salvation to the lost, and freeing people from oppression to see the light in dark situations. If Jesus is your best friend, a reasonable assumption is your goals are aligned with your best friend in one fashion or another.
When Jesus is your best friend, the significant part, all other friendships build around it. One might even say, made through God and others, that then places The Breastplate of Righteousness in one’s life to protect the Love of Friendship. Today, won’t you fully trust in Loving Friendships to put on the whole Wonderfully Weird Armor of God?
With Brotherly Love,