The True-Friendship …

Proverbs 17:17 “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.”

Abba Father good morning – A true-friend is someone who cares enough to get personally involved without inflicting condemnation but shares life-changing love to motivate change. Entrusting our vulnerabilities takes boldness, courageousness, fearlessness. It takes sharing openly from within our heart, our mind, our soul. It’s putting it all into the heart, the mind, the soul of another entrusted with our deepest fears, our greatest joys, our fearful uncertainties. The word friend has intimate responsibility. A true-friend and fair-weathered friend is the difference between loyalty and betrayal. When the ways of this world puts the squeeze on everyday life. When the crisis is brewing. When the temperature is rising. Who encourages you? Stands by your side. Calls you friend unconditionally. Who listens when you toss and turn? When you can’t sleep? Who can we trust to be by our side in the hardest of times? Who will faithfully walk along side when trials become real life? Who encourages when temptations are brewing? Who will reach out? Give you a hug? Wipe away tears? Who helps carry the wearisome load of everyday life? Who reassures within uncertainties of life’s brokenness? Who is loyal no matter what comes our way? Great friends share parts of our life. What about parts of our heart, our mind, our soul. That inner-core of thriving life where imperfection become who we are. Everyone can do wrong things with good intentions. Everyone mixes up words intended to encourage. Everyone shares hurts. Everyone gives advice. Everyone is sinful. Remember, there are some people who never seem to forget. Have all the answers? Rarely follow themselves. People hurting like us. Remember, people will let us down repeatedly. Time after time. Again, and again. Everyday people sharing real life. People we love. Care-about. Enjoy spending our time, our energy, our resources with. People we want to trust so-bad. But imperfections of life, that ugly sinfulness seems to always get in the way. Who do we really trust with our darkest secret? Deepest hurt? Sustaining fears? Continuous worries? Overpowering anxieties? Our greatest joys? Do you have a friend that never lets you down? Never disappoints you. Never hurts you. Never left you alone. Never judged imperfections, that ugly sinfulness. The living bible teaches how to be a true-friend. How to love at all-times with loyalty. How to forgive relentlessly. How to walk along-side boldly, courageously, fearlessly. How to stick around no matter what. Helping endure the heat as the temperature is rising. Our Lord Jesus is our true-friend, dedicated friend, relentlessly leading by example. Enduring the heat of life’s brokenness as the temperature increases out-of-control. Teaching how to love unconditionally, forgive gracefully, encourage as this world tears-down, wears-out, and depletes emotionally, physically, spiritually real lives living real life. Our Lord Jesus is a true-friend we can trust completely. Absolutely forever. A friend that will never leave us, never forsake us, never abandon us. A true-friend we can share our darkest secret. Deepest hurts. Sustaining fears. Continuous worries. Overpowering anxieties. Our greatest joys of life. Christ Jesus engages our life right where we are in this world. All our ugly sinfulness. A friend loving without hurting. Forgiving without remembering. Lord Jesus knows how we feel within our inner-core of thriving life within our heart, our mind, our soul. We have an amazing living God who sent his only son. Christ Jesus Our Lord into the world to destroy all life’s brokenness embedded among and within the ways of this world. Our living God passionately loves all of life. Our life personally unconditionally, intimately. Willingly sacrificing his only son to be painfully inflicted, condemned, persecuted, crucified for our hurts, imperfections, brokenness, and sinfulness of the ways of this world. So, we can live forgiven to forgive. Remember, imperfection is brokenness within friendships. Friends are a gift of undeserved grace needing continuous forgiveness. We have a choice, a decision, a way of life to choose. We can live in the ways of this world having fair-weathered friends come and go. Or willingly live believing, accepting, trusting, following within God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. Not just encountering but engaging a living friendship that is vibrantly alive. Opening our heart, our mind, our soul to a way of life breathing everlasting hope, unconditional love, compassionate forgiveness, everlasting life in heaven. This is living life at its very best within a true-friendship. Jesus Our Lord is the true-friend that forgives, intimately loves, and changes lives forever my friend. 

Father – Thank you for believing, encouraging, teaching, and showing me how to be a true-friend. Loving and forgiving me repeatedly. Your true-friendship teaches me to have faith, hope, and trust even when the ways of this world turns and walks away. Father - Breathe anointed blessings upon my sinfully imperfect life enriching our intimate friendship. Open my inner-core of thriving life within my heart, my mind, my soul to live everyday being a true-friend in a worthy manner breathing all praise, all honor, all glory to you Abba Father, Lord Jesus, Holy Spirit. 

Michael J Zenner