A Friend To The End

Read: Proverbs 18:14-24

There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. --- Proverbs 18:24

The Bible In One Year:
2 Chronicles 23-24
John 15

Traditionally, medical schools have trained their students to help patients live, while offering little instruction in helping them face death. But that is changing with the addition of courses in end-of-life care. Physicians are now taught that when they have used all their medical expertise without achieving a cure, they should seize the opportunity to stand compassionately beside their dying patients and be a friend.

Death frightens many of us and makes us feel awkward in the presence of a terminally ill person. But our greatest opportunities to help someone in Jesus' name may come during a person's final days on earth.

The Bible speaks of a friendship that knows no limits. "A friend loves at all times," said the wise man [Proverbs 17:17]. And "there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother" [18:24]. Jesus siad, "Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends" [John 15:13].

Jesus is both our Great Physician and our Friend, and He promised that He would never leave us nor forsake us [Hebrews 13:5]. He calls us to stand with our friends and family in His name as their earthly journey nears its end. That's what a true friend would do. --- David McCasland

A friend is he who always knows
When the cold wind of trouble blows,
Who comes in dark and stormy night
With friendship's glowing lamp alight. --- Mason

A TRUE FRIEND STAYS TRUE TO THE END.