{"id":5965,"date":"2017-11-07T06:00:54","date_gmt":"2017-11-07T13:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/devonline.us\/daily-e-votional\/?p=5965"},"modified":"2017-11-06T15:29:28","modified_gmt":"2017-11-06T22:29:28","slug":"a-true-friend-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/a-true-friend-3\/","title":{"rendered":"A TRUE FRIEND!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Psalm 41:12<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: #c40000;\"><em>\u201cAs for me, You uphold me in my integrity,<\/em> <em>and set me before Your face forever.\u201d<\/em> <em>\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>A true rejoicing of my heart is all of the friends that I have made across the years.\u00a0 Though I seem to make friends easily and naturally, I never take them for granted &#8212; each one is a very a special gift.\u00a0 But this has not always been the case.<\/p>\n<p>As a boy I don&#8217;t recall ever having an especially close friend. Oh, how I longed for that kind of bonded relationship!\u00a0 Most of my life has been spent feeling that I was unique in that regard. But now, being somewhat matured and having talked with more and more people, I realize that most people feel they lack true friends, especially when they are growing up.<\/p>\n<p>This passage in Psalm 41 certainly is prophetic of Jesus and Judas Iscariot, but it also has personal implications.\u00a0 There are those times in life when our closest friends turn their backs on us and we find ourselves all alone. This is the time when we need to experience the friendship of Jesus who will never leave us or reject us.<\/p>\n<p>There is an old hymn that goes something like this: <strong><em>&#8220;Standing somewhere in the shadows you&#8217;ll find Jesus, He&#8217;s the only One who cares and understands.&#8221;<\/em>\u00a0 <\/strong>Jesus is our true friend!<\/p>\n<p>Blessings dear hearts. Draw near to God today, trust Him completely and be a blessing!<\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8211; &#8211; &#8211; Pastor Cecil<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Psalm 41:12 \u201cAs for me, You uphold me in my integrity, and set me before Your face forever.\u201d \u00a0 A true rejoicing of my heart is all of the friends that I have made across the years.\u00a0 Though I seem to make friends easily and naturally, I never take them for granted &#8212; each one [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-psalm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5965\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}