I hope I hooked you with that line. Now that I have your undivided attention I will get on with what I was saying. I(Ben Hailstone) have a friend with benefits and it is awesome! Don’t freak out, don’t go into shock, and please don’t call my mom and tell on me. I guess I should explain this more: My friend hangs out with me all day and even spends the night. I have an intimate relationship with them. There’s no commitment issues at all. I can even go days with out talking to them, but if I ever need something I can always ask and they will be right there to help me. In fact this one time He even gave His life for me. Hopefully by now you have caught on to what I am saying. I wasn’t talking about some carnal friend of mine. I was talking about Jesus Christ.

I have been thinking a lot lately about my relationship with Jesus and how amazing it is. If we treated our real earthly friends like the way we treat Jesus we wouldn’t have any friends. Luckily Jesus is merciful and is full of grace. Jesus Christ remains our friend even though we curse and blame Him for bad things happening or even completely turn away and deny Him. I challenge you to name one friend you have that would do the same. It is so hard for me to grasp the concept of His mercy being new every morning. If we could realize how awesome Jesus friendship is and how we did nothing to deserve it we would live out our relationship with Jesus a lot differently. I guess I wrote this just to challenge you this week to spend more time with Jesus. Why? Not to get anything from Him because we don’t deserve anything. Just spend time with Him because He gave His life and bore the wrath and pain that was meant for us so that we could spend eternity with Him.

What a friend we have in Jesus,
all our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry
everything to God in prayer!
O what peace we often forfeit,
O what needless pain we bear,
all because we do not carry
everything to God in prayer