“Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” John 15: 13(NKJ)

We bought a charming old white farm house. The first day we lived there the well dried up. The next month the furnace blew up. The same month I found out I was pregnant and had no maternity insurance. Then the electric wires started to burn through the walls. Then, when we jacked the house up, the plaster walls cracked.
We decided to gut the house. We chose one room to live in while the demolition began on the rest of the house. Friends came and helped with the gutting. They took sledge hammers and ripped the walls down. Over the next year we redid the wiring, plumbing, walls and put a new heating system.
It was a challenging year, being pregnant and having all of those hardships, but I had a friend. She wasn’t just any friend; she was the living example of our verse for today. She brought us meals every week for a year. I would go to the bank and find that she had made a deposit into our account. She would mow our grass. She would call other friends to come help us get the day-to-day labor done. If there was a job to be done, she did it. She lived out the example of being a servant, in front of our kids, everyday.
She and her husband devoted countless hours to helping us drywall, paint and everything else you can imagine. They weren’t rich by any stretch of the imagination and they certainly didn’t have extra hours in their day, they always gave with sacrifice.
One day I asked Jackie, “Why are you doing all of this when you don’t even own your own house?” She paused for a while and then said, “Why would you ask that? Isn’t this what Christ tells us to do for our friends?” What could I say in response to that? It is what Christ expects of us, but so few of us take Him literally.
I never deserved such a friend. I think that’s what touched my heart the most. She was a living example of how Christ laid down his life for us. That was 10 years ago. She and her husband have moved further away so we don’t see them as often but one day not long ago a truck backed into our driveway and a brand new Sears riding lawn mower rolled down the ramp with a bow on it.
Who else would do this but a friend who bears another’s burdens and in doing so fulfills the law of Christ? Who do you know in your life that doesn’t necessarily deserve it but needs a friend that will lay down his life for them?
Dear Lord, Thank you for friends! Help me to be a better friend to those You have called into my life. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

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Related Resources:

At the Feet of Ordinary Women by Angie Conrad, et al.
Traveling Together: Thoughts on Women, Friendship and the Journey of Faith by Karla Worley
P31 Woman Magazine
Application Steps:Ask God to help you see the needs of people around you each day. Be obedient to help others in what ever way you are capable of helping. Ask God to show you who the people are that He wants you to invest in.
Reflections:Are you so busy with your life that you don’t have time for helping others?
You don’t have to have extra money or extra time to be a good friend. Just give from your heart and God will provide the rest.

Power Verses:

I John 3:16, “By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?” (NKJ)
Galatians 6:2, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” (NKJ)
Proverbs 18:24, “A man who has friends must himself be friendly, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” (NKJ)