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‘Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of My Father I have made known unto you.’
Joh_15:15
I. It involves a prayerful study of the Word of God.—‘All things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you’ is a definition of the Bible which should make us realise its depth and length. It is only as we ‘read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest’ its truths, by the teaching of the Holy Spirit, as plainly promised as He is necessary, that we enter into the mind of the Lord. He ‘searcheth,’ let us search with Him, ‘the deep things of God’ (1Co_2:10).
II. It involves comfort in the manifold trials and circumstances of life.—It would be untrue to say that in all these we see exactly and plainly the why and the wherefore. We are called sometimes ‘to walk in the dark.’ ‘We walk by faith, not by sight’ (2Co_5:7). But He Who has permitted us to know His great purposes of love and mercy in a thousand other things, may well call on us to ‘know’ that the same love and the same mercy underlie ‘the things not seen.’
III. ‘He that hath friends must show himself friendly’ (Pro_18:24).—These whom their Lord was ‘henceforth’ to call His friends, a few hours later, ‘all forsook Him and fled.’ One of them, with oaths and curses, denied that he knew Him at all, and, ‘sitting in the seat of the scornful,’ looked on while his ‘Friend’ was abused and ill-treated. Are not we oftentimes verily guilty concerning our Friend? Let the love of Christ henceforth be more a constraining power in our lives.
—
Prebendary W. E. Burroughs.
Illustration‘One grey winter’s afternoon two men were walking across a Scotch moor, with the eight-year-old daughter of one of them. The child was the close friend and constant companion of her father. Whenever it was possible she shared his rambles, entering with child-like zest into his interests and pursuits. Their path that day led towards a pine forest of considerable dimensions. Its recesses were sombre and cool even in the brightest summer’s day. Now they were cold and dark, and the wintry wind sighed through the branches. One, the stranger, felt instinctively the influence of the gloom which they were about to penetrate, and when they had proceeded some yards along the forest path he said to the child, now quite invisible by her father’s side, “Marjorie, are you not afraid in this great, dark wood?” Quick and clear and steady came the reply, “Oh no, I am not afraid. Father knows the way; and he has got my hand.” Did the pressure of each hand, the child’s and the man’s, tighten at those words, “He knows the way”? Often before had he led her along paths she knew not, but always led her right, always led her home. Scores of times had they walked and talked, heart to heart as well as hand-in-hand, and she could trust him now. She held him and he held her; and at last, unfearing, the child was brought from the gloom of the dark, dark path to the warmth and brightness and love of home.’