“Dear friends, build each other up in your most holy faith” (Jude 20)
Lord Jesus, the older we get, the more we need friendship not “acquaintanceship”—friendships saturated with you and the friendship-culture the Gospel creates. Until heaven, each of us will go through seasons of heart-exhausting challenges, having more plates to spin than we have fingers, and moments/weeks/months of new weaknesses and fresh vulnerability. We really do need each other.
As an introvert, I have to work hard at this. As an unglorified believer I must work hard at it. I wish our hearts naturally drifted towards the priority of fellowship with you and close, heart-connection with a handful of really good friends. The devil has lost us for eternity, so he is constantly attempting to destroy our love and devotion to you (2Cor.11:1-3), and make our friendships superficial, optional, then non-existent. Aloneness is certainly an option for us, but it’s a bad and destructive one.
Jesus, free us to make “building each other up in our most holy faith” an essential part of our lifestyle all the way Home. Help us arrest the drift towards cruise control friendships, busyness trumping connection, pretending replacing vulnerability, and shame muting honesty.
How do we build each other up? Certainly not by “puffing” each other up with flattery and faux encouragement. And it’s a lot more substantive and durative than “pumping” each other up with a weekend fun trip or a new adventure.
This is where “our most holy faith” comes in, stays, and is to permeate our friendships. Fortunately, that’s really not as “religious” or weird as it sounds. For our “faith” isn’t a something but a Someone. Jesus, you are the source, fountain, and treasure of our faith—our faith’s author and perfector. The best gift we will ever give our friends is to return to our first love for you, Jesus—to a lifestyle of growing in grace and intimacy with you.
To have you alone is to be rich, Jesus. To have you and a handful of friends who really love you and each other is a foretaste of life in the new heaven and new earth. So Very Amen.
