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Fall Favorites - Friends
I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.
John 15:15
Recommended Reading
John 15:9-17
Henry Clay Trumbull, an influential nineteenth-century Christian worker, used all his influence to promote the cause of Sunday school and the message of the victorious Christian life. He was a man with a great capacity for work and also for friendship. In 1891 he wrote a book about friendship, and his premise was: Friendship is a matter of loving, not of being loved. "Friendship is love with the selfish element eliminated," he said. "It is an out-going and an on-going affection. No love in any relation of life can be at its best if the element of friendship be lacking." 1
It's startling to think about our friends this way. We usually want to be with them because of what they do for us—they make us feel comfortable; they're fun to be with; they support us; they affirm us. But what if none of those things happened? What if we derived little benefit from being their friend? Would we be friendly anyway?
It's not what we get but what we give that makes us a friend.
Friendship consists in being a friend, not in having a friend; in giving one's affection unselfishly and unswervingly to another.
Henry Clay Trumbull
Read-thru-the-Bible
Ezekiel 41-46
1 Quotes from Trumbull's book, Friendship, the Master Passion.
I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.
John 15:15
Recommended Reading
John 15:9-17
Henry Clay Trumbull, an influential nineteenth-century Christian worker, used all his influence to promote the cause of Sunday school and the message of the victorious Christian life. He was a man with a great capacity for work and also for friendship. In 1891 he wrote a book about friendship, and his premise was: Friendship is a matter of loving, not of being loved. "Friendship is love with the selfish element eliminated," he said. "It is an out-going and an on-going affection. No love in any relation of life can be at its best if the element of friendship be lacking." 1
It's startling to think about our friends this way. We usually want to be with them because of what they do for us—they make us feel comfortable; they're fun to be with; they support us; they affirm us. But what if none of those things happened? What if we derived little benefit from being their friend? Would we be friendly anyway?
It's not what we get but what we give that makes us a friend.
Friendship consists in being a friend, not in having a friend; in giving one's affection unselfishly and unswervingly to another.
Henry Clay Trumbull
Read-thru-the-Bible
Ezekiel 41-46
1 Quotes from Trumbull's book, Friendship, the Master Passion.
