Article December 3, 1927 Issue

True Friendship

ETHEL L. SARGENT

"Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God." Abraham received this title because he proved his faith, his loving and hearty reliance on God, good, by his works, even to the manifesting of willingness to sacrifice Isaac, his beloved son, should God require it. We know how speedily God rewarded Abraham, not only by restoring Isaac to him, but also by promising that his seed should multiply "as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore." God further promised that in his seed should "all the nations of the earth be blessed." It is in just this quick and sure way that God rewards His children whenever they seek, through self-immolation, to know and do His will.

A definition of the word "friend" is benefactor, which in turn means a doer of good, a giver, a helper. Jesus said, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." Jesus manifested the most wonderful friendship to humanity that the world has ever known, putting aside all sense of material comfort and joy, giving all his time and thought to the bringing of the Christ, Truth, to those who would receive it, and proving its healing power for every human ill.

Jesus knew that in order to demonstrate this Christ-power it was necessary to uncover and to destroy whatever was erroneous in the thought of those who needed healing from either sickness or sin, and that the healing could be neither complete nor permanent unless the people's thought was uplifted to behold in some degree the Christ, the real man, the Son of God. Hence he proved his great friendship by rebuking error whenever it presented itself, though it meant persecution and, finally, the cross. Here, however, Jesus made his highest demonstration of his love for humanity, by proving death itself to be powerless.

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