Taylor, Michael, Paul and Travis trying not too look like tourists in Chicago...


BFF


"I need to tell you something... do you promise not to tell anyone?"
-Don't you love it when that happens? Isn't it awesome when someone decides to trust you with something, to tell you a secret? It's one way you know that you're close... a mark of friendship. If you're in someone's confidence, you're their friend. Right now my kids are three and a half and one and a half and I know everything about their lives, but it won't always be this way. Someday they'll start liking boys and junk like that, and I'll be on the outside. They'll have other best friends.

You know, I used to be jealous of the Old Testament Patriarch Abraham because he's known as God's friend. I always wished I could be included in this two-person fraternity... God and Abraham, best friends forever... I could just imagine them hanging out, eating cheese burgers or playing frisbee golf. And then I read John 15 where Jesus calls His desciples 'friends' and for some reason I felt Him reaching out from those red letters all the way through 20 centuries and calling me His friend too...

And why? What was the mark of friendship for Jesus? "... everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you." In other words, "You're my friends because I tell you stuff... you know all the secrets." Psalm 25:14 says, "The Lord confides in those who fear Him. He makes His covenant known to them."

Paul said that his ministry was making known a mystery that has always been hidden... like a secret. And you want to know what it was? ...That God loves people like me and you and that Jesus died for us too. John said Jesus came to make God known to us... to tell us things about the Father we would have never known otherwise. Peter said that the things we now know are the things the prophets and angels were dying to understand... like secrets we were let in on. Jesus even said that Abraham longed to see His day...

Jesus who is God loves you and has loved you unto death because He wants to know you and you don't have to do anything but take the free gift He's offering you to have forgiveness, a new heart, a place in heaven, power to live this life beautifully and a relationship with Him. These are mysteries, secrets He's letting you in on... why? Because He wants to be friends... best friends.