Deeper Life #63

Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.

—John 15:14

WE LONG FOR PERENNIAL FRESHNESS in our Christian lives. It is indeed a blessing to enjoy spiritual freshness at camp meeting, during a revival meeting, and in our prayer meetings; but what we yearn to know is the secret source of abiding freshness.

Friendship with Jesus is the first source of abiding freshness in our Christian lives. What is a friend? A “friend” is one in agreement and attachment to the deepest and most fundamental things of a person’s life. In order to be a friend of Jesus, I must be born again of the Spirit of God. Only then will I have a disposition like His.

It is an experience of perennial delight to any man or woman to know that he or she has a friend “that sticketh closer than a brother”! Jesus is this kind of friend. He understands the heart so thoroughly that He satisfies the last aching abyss of the heart. Jesus is ready to be your friend, if you will but come to Him. This attachment in holy friendship will bring freshness to your heart and life.

Prayer Thought: Thank You, Jesus, for being my personal friend.

SUGGESTED READING: Matthew 11:28–30