Serving God and Others: Devotions From Time of GraceSample

I don’t have any friends It isn’t too hard to acquire blood relatives, classmates, and coworkers. It is much harder to gain friends, real friends, people who love and accept you flaws and all. Perhaps you’ve heard the cry of the heart from a kid to his mom, “I don’t have any friends.” Perhaps he had been betrayed by people he thought liked him, people who later mocked him publicly or used him to get something they wanted. Do you fear sometimes that you don’t have any true friends? If so, you may have noticed that waiting around for people to notice you and come to you probably isn’t working as a strategy. The writer to the Hebrews has a better idea: “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another--and all the more as you see the Day approaching” (Hebrews 10:25). Your congregation is a great place to build relationships that matter. In that sacred space we all come as starving beggars, lost and foolish sinners, desperately in need of God’s mercy. There we are welcomed by Jesus, Friend of sinners, whose unconditional love warms our cold hearts and makes them beat again. There we find meaning for our lives by helping and serving other people. And it is in that blessed work that God will send people into your life to fill the hole in your heart.