04/09/2022
Chuck Savage is a brother in Christ that I have loved dearly for many years, and he sent me a card yesterday. There was nothing unusual about that because he sends me one every single week like clockwork. You see he lives in a distant city, and yet our friendship survives the miles. Each week I receive a brief handwritten card from him in which he tells me a bit about his family, his life, and something he found uplifting about one of my devotional messages… which he reads religiously. He is without a doubt one of the finest, and most godly men I know, and he is my friend. Even though most would say that we are unlikely friends, and have very little in common, our friendship, and brotherly love for one another, survives.
“Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.”
Romans 12:10 NIV
Do you have a friend who will travel across the country to pray for you when you are in crisis, or who prays for your family in every time of need? Do you have a friend that you honor, and who you lift up in your daily prayers? Do you have a friend who will send you a card with a slip of paper containing the Bible verse Romans 12:10… and would you know that this is exactly how they felt… even though you haven’t seen them in a few years?
“And the Lord restored the fortunes of Job, when he had prayed for his friends. And the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before.”
Job 42:10 ESV
Friendship is a gift from God, and He rewards us for not only helping a friend in need, but for lifting them up in our prayers. My friendship with Chuck started many years ago when he walked into my office on a sales call, and we recognized one another to be Christians. On one such visit he brought me a small leather bound devotional book titled The Power of Prayer, by EM Bounds, and several weeks later, after finishing the devotional book I had been reading, I picked it up and read that day’s entry. It spoke to me, so I jotted down my thoughts in a text message to Chuck, and he responded with his thoughts. The next day it happened again, and I texted Him once more. As the days went by this became an everyday occurrence, and as my thoughts became more robust than a simple text conversation, he asked if he could share my emails with his family, and others. So began my daily devotionals, and the Lord’s work has continued through the years, and He has blessed them. Today they are read widely around the world. All of this stemming from a friendship that God established between two unlikely men; Chuck and myself.
“As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.”
Proverbs 27:17 NLT
I said that Chuck and I don’t have a lot in common, but I meant that we don’t have much in common that is of this world. In fact, through Christ we have a great deal in common. Here are some examples of our differences… Chuck is much younger than me, I am white and he is black, I work in computers, and Chuck is in sales, I like to watch sports, but Chuck is in his college’s sports hall of fame, I went to a military college and he went to an Ivy League school, we are both Protestant, but are members of different denominations, and the list goes on, but in Christ we have so much in common… I believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and so does Chuck, we both believe that we should obey God’s commandments, we believe that Jesus lived, died, and was resurrected to redeem us from our sins, we believe that God is with us always, we believe in prayer, miracles, blessings, that our faith doesn’t separate us by the color of our skin or any physical difference, and the list goes on and on, and there is one more thing… we believe that our friendship was founded and blessed by God, and we love and honor one another as brothers in Christ.
“There are “friends” who destroy each other, but a real friend sticks closer than a brother.”
Proverbs 18:24 NLT
So let’s ask ourselves some very important questions; who are our friends, and do we love and honor them? Who has God put in our lives to bless us with? Do we look at the worldly differences between ourselves and someone else, thus missing the opportunity to develop close friendships, or are the similarities we have in Christ, the eternal likenesses, enough to give us twice the blessings we would have had otherwise?
Prayer:
Father, thank you for the friends like Chuck Savage that you have blessed me with, and thank you for calling me your friend. Thank you for the prayers of friendship that fill the golden bowls offered up with incense before you. Holy, Holy, Holy, are you my God who blesses me, and doubles all I have for obeying you by placing my friends above me. Praised be your name for every prayer of intercession prayed by a friend for me, and for allowing me to pray for them in their times of need, celebration, and thanksgiving. Merciful are you Father for filling my life with so many who care for me, and for allowing me to share your love with them. Wash me in the blood of your Son Jesus, and remove from me all the sin that would disrupt the love that should abound in me for others in my life. Let your Holy Spirit guide me in every aspect of my life, and in understanding what it means to be a friend.
““This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you, so that you will love one another.”
John 15:12-17 ESV
Rich Forbes