I love my friends, and by the grace of God, I have had the privilege of knowing a lot of people as friend.  Through serving God in the ministry, I have had the privilege of getting to know many people and coming to know many of them as close and dear friends.  One of the benefits of being a pastor is that I have friends all over the country and beyond that I met through serving God. California, Pennsylvania, Florida, Texas, Honduras, and Brazil are just a few places where I have friends, not to mention all the friends I have in Mississippi!

I must admit, that I am not always the best at staying in touch with my friends, yet each and every one of them is special to me in their own particular way, and it hurts me to ever lose a friend.  In the last few months I have lost two very fine and close friends to death.  They are not really lost, because I know where they are.  It is just that I have lost contact with them until Jesus comes, or I go to be with them.  I miss them, but at least I was able to enjoy their friendship on earth, and will get to enjoy it for eternity in heaven.

There is a new way to lose a friend now that is more hurtful than death.  Now, with the advent of Facebook, if someone decides that they don’t want to put forth the effort to work through misunderstandings, they can simply “defriend” you from their Facebook account.  It probably isn’t really a new concept, but it is certainly new terminology to be defriended (as I write this my spell checker underlines it as a misspelled word!).  No one wants to be defriended, especially if they are like me and love people, even those that no longer wants to be their friend.

While there will always be misunderstandings that will sometimes result in people “defriending” you, it is good to know that there is One who will never “defriend” us; our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  Even though we let Him down over and over and  sin against Him who died on the cross in our place, He will never defriend us, because He loves us.  Jesus is, ” . . . a friend who sticks closer than a brother” (Proverbs 18: 24).  I thank God that I know Jesus as my friend, and that He knows me and loves me so much that nothing I could ever do would cause Him to defriend me.  Thank you, Jesus, my Lord, Savior, and Friend for all eternity.  I pray that you know Jesus as your Lord, Savior, and Friend too.