Bill Yount:
The Power of Being a Friend Will be Unleashed in 2010
Do you know why internet communication is taking the world by storm? It is bringing friends together—old friends, new friends, future friends. I have met one friend on there I hadn't seen or heard from in twenty years! Some people with whom I thought our relationship had come to an end are now adding me as a friend on their venue. I realize "adding me as their friend" may be through some mistake or through another person's suggestion, but nevertheless I see the hand of God bringing people together.We were born for relationships, and as the earth is being shaken and men's hearts are failing, I hear the world crying out for "a friend in 2010!" I believe the key that unlocked the hearts of people when Jesus came to earth was Matthew 11:19: "Jesus was a friend of publicans and sinners"—and He still is! I believe just being a friend to someone begins to open the Heavens over that person's life for God to reveal Himself through.
Your Enemy Today Could Very Well Become Your Best Friend in 2010
The first sign of a strained relationship is often a lack of communication through words. We often hear offended people say, "We had words between us." And it's words that can bring a broken relationship back together again. I am reminded of an old song by the Bee Gees: "It's only words, and words are all I have to take your heart away!" In spite of strained relationships, ongoing communication with words will often breakdown walls of division and strife.
God often puts something we need in the person we don't like. Don't count anyone out in your relationships, even the hurtful ones. Your enemy today could very well become your best friend in 2010! In the words of Abraham Lincoln, "The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend." Proverbs 16:7 says, "When a man's way please the LORD, He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him."
On the Internet you get to think before you say something, and that probably gives all of us a friendly edge in communicating. I am sure many family and friends of soldiers at war treasure the words of their loved ones through writing although they don't get to see them. I then realized how we don't literally see God face to face either, but it's His written Word to us in the Bible that draws and reveals His face to us in intimacy.
How important are His words? Psalm 138:2 says "You have magnified Your word above all Your name." It's through the words of Jesus that we truly get to know Him and what He is like. It's the same with people. If we saw the person's face but they were wordless, we could never get to know who they really are. You can tell who a person is through their words.
Even what seems to be frivolous internet communication, like someone telling us what they are doing right now or thinking about, is building bridges in everyday life. We get to know people in their everyday lives and begin to discover we all are so much alike and have the same needs to be loved and feel needed. I know a few people who, in person, don't say much and they are hard to get to know, but through the Internet their words light up the screen expressing their heart, and I have gotten to know what makes them tick. One person whom I know, who in person is so quiet, has just released a book that she has written. This person is full of creative words of life that reveal her significance.
2010 is the Year You and Your Best Friend Were Born For!
Proverbs 17:17 "A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity."
I would like to share about a true earthly friend that seems to surface once in a life time surpassing all internet and earthly communications. That once in a life time friend who knows all about you and yet loves you no matter what. They discover the worst about you and yet nothing surprises them for you have gotten to know their shortcomings too. That friendship is Heaven sent and reminds us of God-given friendships throughout the Bible, such as Jonathon and David and Ruth and Naomi. They were born for each other's adversity as well as their destiny.
1 Samuel 18:1, "...Jonathan loved David as he loved his own soul." And Ruth said to Naomi in Ruth 1:16-17, "Where you go I will go and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people and thy God my God. Where you die, I will die and there will I be buried."
By now, through all of your relationships on earth, a best friend has surely surfaced. If not, I believe a best friend is coming forth to be with you in this coming year to help you through to your victory against impossible odds. And you were born to help your best friend through whatever they may face. 2010 will be a defining year for friendships that will prove "two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him that is alone when he falls; for he doesn't have another to help him up" (Ecclesiastes 4:9,10). Perhaps in many of our ministries and lives our greatest need is not for finances but friends. Friends just naturally want to help each other no matter what the need may be.
Even Jesus, on earth, seemed to have a best friend who seemed closer to Him than any of the other disciples. It was John, the "Beloved." He leaned on Jesus' breast at the last supper and showed up at the crucifixion when the rest had forsaken Him. Jesus' love for John had cast out all fear in Him, even the fear of death. Jesus even trusted John with the care of His mother as He was dying.
John had such a relationship with Jesus that he wrote a whole book about Jesus called Revelation. This book is a revelation of Jesus and how we overcome in the midst of a chaotic world. "And they overcame him (the devil) by the Blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they loved not their lives unto the death" (Revelation 12:11). It's interesting that John was not afraid of death, and yet he ended up living the longest of all of the disciples. John had the heavenly attitude of "Whatever happens, we win!"
Proverbs 18:24 "A man that has (or who wants) friends must show himself friendly: and there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother."
Father, in Jesus' name we thank You that You no longer call us servants but Your friends if we love You and love others (John 15:14, 15). Even when we were lost, You were our best friend who came and found us. Help us to show ourselves friendly to this hostile world. Help us to be God with skin on for those who don't know You. Help us to allow You to love through us that many will find You as their best friend forever in 2010!
"What a friend we have in Jesus!"
Bill Yount
Blowing the Shofar Ministries
Email: theshofarhasblown@juno.com
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