The label “fair weather friend” is one no conscientious person would desire. It carries the implications of an opportunist at best and traitor-in-disguise at worst. The Lord Jesus called His betrayer “Friend” as He received his signal kiss in the Garden. Judas was the worst of fair-weather friends. Christ said in John 15:14, “Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.” Abraham was called the friend of God because he believed His word. The commandment of our Lord is “believe also in me.” I praise God that Jesus seeks, saves, and makes friends of all He enables to believe.
“A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity” (Proverbs 17:17). Solomon also said, “A man that hath friends must show himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother” (Proverbs 18:24). Jesus said, “Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee” (Mark 5:19). His enemies charged the Lord Jesus Christ with being “a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners!” (Luke 7:34). But that is His true glory, for He came to seek and to save the lost. It is different when someone desires to be like the world. James warned, “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God” (James 4:4).
GOLDEN THOUGHT: There is a Friend that sticketh closer than a brother.
[Excerpt adapted from Wonderful Words by Stewart Custer (March 16 reading).]
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