BBD 01.24.18 Be Friendly (Classic)
Posted by: wrathered <wrathered@...>
Classic from 2010
Burning Bush Devotional
24 January 2018
Be Friendly
A friend
loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity. - Proverbs 17:17 NKJV.
A man who has friends must himself be friendly, but there is a friend who
sticks closer than a brother. - Proverbs 18:24 NKJV.
Hide me from the secret plots of the wicked, from the rebellion of the workers
of iniquity, who sharpen their tongue like a sword, and bend their bows to
shoot their arrows - bitter words, that they may shoot in secret at the
blameless; suddenly they shoot at him and do not fear. - Psalm 64:2-4 NKJV.
Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends.
- John 15:13 NKJV.
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still
sinners, Christ died for us. - Romans 5:8 NKJV.
Indians in the state of Rondonia in western Brazil have had a difficult
existence in the last part of the 20th and into the 21st Century. They face
pressures from those who want their land for assorted reasons. Several tribes
are extinct, or close to being so; because of those pressures, which from what
I read, may have even been murderous massacres. It is no wonder that one
remaining member of a tribe that digs rectangular holes in the center of their
tents (or used to), is reluctant to make contact with the outside. There was
found what appeared to be a campsite of about 14 huts with the same rectangular
holes in the center that had been bulldozed. Did I say that the remaining tribe
member was reluctant to make contact with the outside world? The last
government agent who came close to the lone tribesman was shot with an arrow
that hit him in the chest. That last near contact was back in the 1990s.
There are lessons here for individuals and for churches. One of those lessons
is that there have always been and always will be those who would harm us if
they could for their own reasons. Sometimes those reasons are financial,
sometimes those reasons may be that they simply enjoy hurting others, sometimes
it is because of their prejudices, and other times it may be for some unknown
reason. There are those who hate Christians, and who hate the church, and they
will cause us harm if they have the opportunity.
Having in mind the known possibility of there being some people who are hostile
to us and hostile to the church, how do we continue to move forward in
fulfilling the Great Commission? As Jesus says in Matthew
28:19-20, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them
in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them
to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always,
even to the end of the age. Amen.” There must be some balance in that
we do not completely throw away caution; however, there will always be some
risk involved in doing anything our Lord calls upon us to do. God may not call
us to go to the lone member of this lost tribe in Brazil, but He may call us to
go to our neighbor who lives next door.
Another lesson for us as individual Christians and churches is that we will not
gain more friends, and we will not grow as churches by shooting arrows at
people. When you have people who visit your church, or you visit them in their
homes you must yourself “be friendly.” We may not
shoot people with arrows today, but we may shoot off our mouths with words that
are almost as deadly. When did Jesus lay down His life for us? He did it while
we were still sinners, still enemies as one translation puts it. Our neighbors,
our guests at church are likely not to be “perfect people” and they are
likely not to be just like us. But Jesus still died for them, just as He died
for us.
What do you think Jesus would have us to do? What does Jesus want you to do?
Copyright © 2010 - 2018. Ed
Wrather. The Burning Bush website has been online since January 31, 1998. On
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(Wesley Lewis that I have asked for prayer for died in a traffic accident
December 23rd and his wife and sister-in-law were severely injured –
another sister-in-law and her husband were also killed in the accident.),
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