"...we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love." 1 Cor 13:13, The Message.
The theme of this week is bFriend, discovering the power of Christian Friendship. It's one of the main themes of Paul's letters to the church at Corinth, getting along with others. In other words, God is interested in the kind of friends we make but even more in the kind of friends we become.
It's really true that if we become great at befriending others, we will have many great friends, but if our goal is to have great friends without being a great friend, we'll find ourselves lonely.
There's a really simple reason we are to focus on becoming a friend rather than making friends...it keeps our trust in God.
Too often we humans get tied up in each other's lives to the degree that we depend on each other instead of God. So when our friends let us down, it ruins our day, our week, our lives. But that's when we are focused on making friends.
Rather God wants us to focus on becoming great friends because in doing things that great friends do is to depend on God for the strength to do them. Paul concludes his "love chapter" with this charge, "trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly." And in so doing we can become the greatest of friends...
...of God...
...and of others.
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