But the friendship of Jesus is perfect. Its touch is always gentle and full of healing. Its helpfulness is always wise. Its tenderness is like the warmth of a heavenly summer, brooding over the life which accepts it. All the love of God pours forth in the friendship of Jesus. To be his beloved is to be held in the clasp of the everlasting arms. "I and my Father are one," said Jesus; his friendship, therefore, is the friendship of the Father. Those who accept it in truth find their lives flooded with a wealth of blessing.
Creeds have their place in the Christian life; their articles are the great framework of truth about which the fabric rises and from which it receives its strength. Worship is important, if it is vitalized by faith and the Holy Spirit. Rites have their sacred value as the channels through which divine grace is communicated. But that which is vital in all spiritual life is the friendship of Jesus, coming to us in whatever form it may. To know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge is living religion. Creeds and services and rites and sacraments bring blessing to us only as they interpret to us this love, and draw us into closer personal relations with Christ.
"Behold him now where he comes! Not the Christ of our subtile creeds, But the light of our hearts, of our homes, Of our hopes, our prayers, our needs, The brother of want and blame, The lover of women and men."
The friendship of Jesus takes our poor earthly lives, and lifts them up out of the dust into beauty and blessedness. It changes everything for us. It makes us children of God in a real and living sense. It brings us into fellowship with all that is holy and true. It kindles in us a friendship for Christ, turning all the tides of our life into new and holy channels. It thus transforms us into the likeness of our Friend, whose we are, and whom we serve.
Thus Jesus is saving the world by renewing men's lives. He is setting up the kingdom of heaven on the earth. His subjects are won, not by force of arms, not by a display of Sinaitic terrors, but by the force of love. Men are taught that God loves them; they see that love first in the life of Jesus, then on his cross, where he died as the Lamb of God, bearing the sin of the world. Under the mighty sway of that love they yield their hearts to heaven's King. Thus love's conquests are going on. The friendship of Jesus is changing earth's sin and evil into heaven's holiness and beauty.