Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor…(Romans 12:10).
Thomas Edison lived on an estate that had a huge fence surrounding his property. In the front of the fence was a massive iron gate that anyone who came to visit him would have to push open and then push closed. It required such a great deal of strength to maneuver the gate back and forth, that eventually one of Edison’s friends complained about it and told him he needed to fix it so it would open easier.
“With a twinkle in his eye, Thomas Edison took the man to the back of his house and showed him an elaborate mechanical device he had built with a combination of levers and pulleys and pumps. He then took the man to the roof of the house and said, ‘What you don’t know is that everybody who comes to see me and opens and closes that gate automatically pumps a gallon of water into the tank on top of my house’” (Swetmon. Friendship Potential).
When I read that I had to ask myself the question, “Am I the kind of friend who has to get a ‘gallon of water’ before I let you in?” Or am I the kind of friend Jesus was to His friends: “This is My commandment that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:12-13). How many friends do we have that we would lay down our lives for? It should be ALL of them!
…By this we know that we are in Him: the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked…The one who loves his brother abides in the Light and there is no cause for stumbling in him (1 John 2:5-6, 10).
That kind of friendship is truly worth more than a gallon of water!
The Speaker's Log 