Feb 20/25 -- Proverbs 17:17 -- by the Spirit's power kept for Jesus

People loved by the Father, in the Spirit's power: Sh'ma ~ hear and obey Jesus!

A friend loves at all times,
and a brother is born for adversity.
Proverbs 17:17 ESV
 
There are a few lessons I have learned as a prison-visiting pastor who also meets with men, former inmates, who are in addiction treatment centres. These are lessons I wish the fellowship of believers had taught me in church but are not what I’ve either modeled or experienced in churches.
 
A friend loves at all times. At the Christ-based addiction treatment centres where I teach, it is common for those who are treated for their addictions to slip back into addiction. Early on I expected such men and women to be shamed. Rejected. Refused treatment again. They are not. Those who treat their addictions know the power of sin and the lure of the devil’s lies. They are patient and prepared to receive back those who seek help. To my grief, I have participated in churches where there is a unwritten policy of one-strike, you’re out. No matter the remorse or pleas, depending on the sin, the church does not receive back those who formerly were friends.
 
A friend loves at all times. At the prisons where I teach, there is a definite hierarchy of sin. There are certain crimes that if exposed in the prison setting, will subject a man to beatings and violence. There are certain persons, that if they find themselves in prison, will be subjected to all kinds of harm, think of folks like lawyers, or former prison guards. At the chapel the word sanctuary has taken on some of the strength of its original meaning. It is a place of refuge where believers, who know much about one another, sometimes even the worst about one another, in obedience to Christ and commitment to His word, meet with one another, pray for one another and study together. Sins though known, are acknowledged as something that each person there must bring to Jesus. Without Him there is no relief.
 
Consider the words of Jesus: No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you (John 15:15). Jesus Himself, fully aware of the sinful state of our minds, hearts, souls and actions, does not shrink back. He calls us friends.
 
A brother is born for adversity. Adversity is trouble so intense that it causes a man to cry out day and night. Adversity, is when it seems every difficulty known to man assaults one wave after another crashing wave with the relentless indifference of the ocean. Adversity can be troubles that a man’s own sins have caused him. It can be the result of God’s providence which is used to extract sin, serving to correct the iniquitous heart while redirecting the soul from death to life. Adversity can be the result of the world crushing against you because you are in Christ.
 
A true brother will not abandon you. He will know you, your sins and all, faithfully calling out the sin and like an immoveable rock tell you he is not going anywhere. He will face this crisis with you. I have seen such loyal friendship, a bond of brotherhood forged on the anvil of great sorrows which hammer blows of troubles still rain down, which arise in prison and in treatment centres because those who have sinned greatly know what it is to love greatly and be loved.
Not too long ago I man who regularly participates in Bible study at one of the prisons testified. “Confession is what I dreaded. The lack of it drove me mental. When I confessed my sins, over days and many hours, the relief was tremendous. It wasn’t what I expected. My church rejected me.” He went on to testify that it is while he is in prison he met others, who having been appropriately punished for their crimes, sought out fellow believers. Such believers ignoring the hierarchy of sin and the cycle of violence in the prison system, trust in the God of the word with such tenacity they are prepared to ignore the threats of the system to stay true to God and to one another.
 
Now listen to the words of Jude, the opening of his brief letter: “Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, To those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ: May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you” (Jude 1-2 ESV). Though he is the half brother of Jesus he can only acknowledge this in a humble, round-about way. He claims his relationship as a brother to James, the much-better-known early leader in the New Testament church. James and Jude are both the half-brothers of Jesus.
 
Consider Jesus, the brother born for adversity. James and Jude rejected the claims of Jesus during his lifetime (John 7:5). When Jesus preached and crowds followed Him, His mother and brothers thought He was crazy and wanted to quietly bring Him home until His zealotry died down (Mark 3:20-21). When Jesus was crucified, crushed for the sins of His half-brothers (as well as all those whom the Father would give to Jesus as trophies of His atoning work at the cross), they persisted in their unbelief of Jesus.
 
Dearest family of God, the Bible is so inexpressibly rich in the theology of God’s forgiveness. Depicting the nearness of Christ so clearly it is near impossible to believe God could be so loving, so good, so thorough going in His crushing of sin. It is too easy for believers, having had the depth and breadth and length and height of their wickedness forgiven, to then turn around and seek to deny others that lavish fountain of living water that is theirs in Christ. When Jesus spoke to the Samaritan women at the well, He told her that He is the living water, a spring of water welling up to eternal life.
 
Christ is that friend, He is that brother described in Proverbs 17. With every new revelation of our sinfulness, our gross need for healing, our every newly exposed need for purification, Jesus is for us living water welling up to eternal life. He is the spring that never runs dry. He is the healer that goes to the source of our impurity and makes the believer clean.
 
Ah, I think if we as believers understood this better, we’d be scandalous in our embrace of sinners. We’d be fierce in our protection of those whose sins have been exposed and now know in ways they’d never understood before, their devastating need for Jesus. They’d be like starved men rushing to the banquet table to gorge. Wanting to be fed. Wanting to be graced. Asking Jesus to take hold of every part of them, every aspect, every as yet unknown, unexposed sin, so that His grace, like mighty rivers, might cleanse them.
 
I need the words of Jude, his opening phrase, “to those who are called, beloved in God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ. Jude knew his sinful rejection of his half-brother Jesus. He knew as only a taunting, tormenting sibling can, how to hurt Jesus and revile Him and call out that oldest brother as one born out of wedlock. Whenever Satan would tempt Jude to despair, whenever memory would make him feel like the ground should swallow him up for the ugliness of his earlier hatred against his own brother, Jude knew and proclaimed he was “kept for Jesus Christ”. It is the Spirit of God Who will hold a believer in the place of grace, until the cleansing work of Jesus Christ has completed its work, and a believer passes from this life into glory where death, sin, adversity and troubled memories of haunting sins are no more.
 
Hear my cry, O God,
    listen to my prayer;
2 from the end of the earth I call to you
    when my heart is faint.
Lead me to the rock
    that is higher than I,
3 for you have been my refuge,
    a strong tower against the enemy.
4 Let me dwell in your tent forever!
    Let me take refuge under the shelter of your wings! Selah
Today’s prayer is: Psalm 61:1-4 ESV
 
https://youtu.be/LULK2nZ6sCc?si=gjGIfElds3zhBL6j Before the Throne of God

 

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