Grace to you & peace from God our Father & the Lord Jesus Christ.
“A Friend Indeed” is July 12th’s entry from Dr. David Jeremiah’s ‘Walking with God: 365 Daily Devotions’.
"A man who has friends must himself be friendly, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother." Proverbs 18:24
There is no consensus as to the origin of the question “With friends like these, who needs enemies?”–but we all know what it means: sometimes those we thought were our friends act more like enemies. Anyone who has experienced such a reversal of “friendship” knows the pain and perplexity it can cause.
Job experienced such pain. When he was at the worst point of his life, his friends came to accuse and lecture him about his dishonesty before God and his failure to repent of whatever sins caused God to heap suffering upon him. They were not the kind of friends described in Proverbs 18:24 — friends who stick closer than a brother (or sister). Anyone who has a brother or sister knows that siblings can act like enemies at times. But there is a friend who does what even a sibling cannot do, a friend who loves at all times. That’s the kind of friend Job needed.
Jesus declared Himself to be the friend of those who follow Him in John 15:14. If you need a friend today, He is there for you. If you know others who need a friend, be one who sticks closer than a brother (or sister).
To end, a quote from D.L. Moody, “A rule I have had for years is, to treat the Lord Jesus Christ as a personal friend. His is not a creed, a mere empty doctrine; but it is He Himself we have.”
P.S., Check out the 2023 movie called, “The Shift“. It is a Sci-Fi Thriller modernization of the story of Job.
