Jesus – Your Friend Now

We don’t have to wait until eternity to enjoy our Lord’s friendship. Right now, Jesus your Friend wants to walk with you and talk with you and tell you that you are His own.

I saw a report from the surgeon general of the United States, Dr. Vivek Murthy, who issued a warning that our nation is facing an “epidemic of loneliness.” He said, “Even before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, approximately half of U.S. adults reported experiencing measurable levels of loneliness.”

At no time in history have we been more connected to one another. Through social media and smart devices, we can connect instantly with anyone in the world. Yet, ironically, the same technologies that can connect us are contributing to an ever-growing sense of isolation as we replace many significant face-to-face interactions with impersonal virtual “friends.”

On a human level, we need friends and family, and that’s one of the roles of local churches like the one I pastor. When we gather for Bible study, prayer, and worship, we are coming together as brothers and sisters in Christ, serving Him together and meeting one another’s needs. Yet there’s an even deeper need in the human heart. We are made to be friends with God, and in Him we find a Friend who will neither leave us nor forsake us (Heb. 13:5).

If you’re suffering from loneliness or a poor self-image and think nobody would be interested in you, remember this: the Creator of the universe is so interested in you – He loves you so much, He desires a relationship with you so much – that He died for you. That’s the whole reason for the incarnation. Jesus came to earth and died for you because He values you. He wants a relationship with you. He wants to be your Friend.

A writer from yesteryear noted that many believers “adore Christ as God, they feed on Him in Communion, cleanse themselves in His precious blood, look to the time when they shall see Him as their Judge; yet of that intimate knowledge of and companionship with Him in which the Divine Friendship consists, they have experienced little or nothing…. Jesus Christ first and foremost desires our friendship…. Now the consciousness of this friendship of Jesus Christ is the very secret of the saints.”

Evangelist D. L. Moody was the best-known preacher of his day. At his 1899 memorial service, a friend said of Moody, “He walked with God, and so did not have to turn out of his way to speak to Him. I have been driving with him off on some retired road about Northfield. We would be talking together, when, suddenly, he would pause for a moment and speak to God just as naturally as he would speak to his friend.”

Shouldn’t it be the same for us?

Many years ago, a man named Joseph Scriven left his home in Ireland and traveled to Canada, running away from a tragedy in his life. He found peace in his relationship with Christ and devoted himself to doing kind deeds for others, such as providing firewood for widows. When he heard his mother was ill back in Ireland, he wrote a poem and sent it to her. He never imagined that his words would someday become a great hymn of comfort for millions of people:

What a Friend we have in Jesus,
All our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry
Everything to God in prayer.
O what peace we often forfeit,
O what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry
Everything to God in prayer.

Dr. Robert Jeffress joins James and Betty this Tuesday and Thursday on LIFE TODAY. Excerpted from Jesus Revealed In The End Times by Dr. Robert Jeffress. Copyright ©2025 by Dr. Robert Jeffress. Published by Baker Books, a division of Baker Publishing House. Used by permission.