The Gift of Friends
The writer of Hebrews knew that faith is not a solitary project. After a long and breathtaking argument about what Christ has accomplished for us, he turns to practical counsel: Hold fast to your hope because God is faithful. (Heb. 10:23) Then, immediately after, he gives a second charge: “Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.” The Christian life was never meant to be a private endurance test. That’s a liberating idea for anyone who’s tried to grow in faith on willpower alone. God gives us His Spirit, His Word, and prayer, but He also gives us people. They come in the form of friends, mentors, and fellow travelers who notice when we’re struggling, who speak truth with kindness, who pray when we can't, and who draw out of us a faith more generous than we knew we had. The best friends we have in the Christian life do something rare: They love us exactly as we are and gently keep pointing us toward Christ. That’s the kind of friend worth having and worth being. Ask God to bring such people into your life and to make you into that kind of friend to someone else.
