I was talking to a young girl the other day and she was telling me how she felt like she didn’t have any good friends that she could talk to or trust and how all of her girlfriends just turned on her. After more discussion and some probing of questions, I figured out the problem was that her friends had no sense of loyalty or responsibility.
She and her friends would plan activities and then something “better” would come along and the friends would dump her for something else. No responsibility to commitments.
It also seemed that her friends were very selfish and chose to do things for themselves with no sense of loyalty for their friendship. The girl was very upset from the hurt caused by her so-called friends.
It reminded me of the time Peter denied Jesus. Think about how Jesus must have felt. He was preparing to go to a cross and die a cruel death for His friends and was trying to get His best friends to understand what they needed to do after He was gone. He wanted them to understand the story of salvation. These were the friends He had hand-picked to be His followers and to know all the secrets to carry on the work after He was gone.
Imagine how brokenhearted and hurt He was when He looked over and saw Peter deny that he even knew who Jesus was. Jesus was giving his life up for this guy and Peter acted like he didn’t even know Him! He didn’t just break a date to the mall or forget a birthday. No, he acted like Jesus was NOT his friend.
But Jesus forgave him and continued to love him. As hard as it is to act that way in today’s world with the selfish, irresponsible people that loosely call others their “friend”, we are required to forgive them as well. Not just once or twice but an unlimited amount of times.
So the next time you catch your friend in a lie, or see them “denying” you as a friend, or feel the deep hurt of their betrayal, remember what Jesus went through and stop and say a special prayer for your “friend” and remember that Jesus is the friend who is with you all the time and will never break a promise……..even if He has to go with you to the mall!
