{"id":663,"date":"2010-07-07T18:34:57","date_gmt":"2010-07-07T22:34:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.bottlerockettheology.com\/?p=121"},"modified":"2010-07-07T18:34:57","modified_gmt":"2010-07-07T22:34:57","slug":"a-friend-of-a-friend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dave.dlscott.info\/?p=663","title":{"rendered":"A friend of a friend &#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>Psalm 32.1-2 NIV<br \/>\nBlessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.\u00a0 2 Blessed is the man whose sin the LORD does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Sometimes as I write a post the best thoughts just kind of squirt out at the end.\u00a0 That happened yesterday with this sentence:\u00a0 &#8220;What a friend is the friend of Jesus.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s like &#8220;now that&#8217;s a tomato!&#8221;<br \/>\nAfter eating tomatoes wrapped in plastic all winter, you are beginning to believe that is how tomatoes taste, then you go out to the garden (or even better your neighbor brings a sack over) and twist your first tomato off the vine and rub the dirt off &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>And take a bite and as you dribble down the front of your t-shirt you remember &#8230; &#8220;Now that&#8217;s a tomato!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>And that is what it is like with friends or associates, even Christians.\u00a0 I&#8217;d rather have the ones that have had some dirt rubbed off them.\u00a0 The ones that have been rolled around in the grace and mercy of God.<\/p>\n<p>The ones that have kept themselves so clean in plastic wrap, nyah, not so much.<\/p>\n<p>We all have the dirt; some deal with it before Jesus, some don&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not saying we intentionally sin so that grace increases.\u00a0 (Hmmm &#8230; where have I heard that?)\u00a0 But it does when we do.\u00a0 God says so.\u00a0 (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=rom%205&amp;version=NIV\">Romans 5.20-21<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>I am saying that if we live honestly before God and the people around us stuff happens.\u00a0 Our feet get dirty on the path; sometimes more than that.\u00a0 But the &#8220;real tomato&#8221; knows where grace is; the real tomato knows in what she is planted &#8211; the righteousness and goodness and mercy and grace and love of God.\u00a0 All bought and paid for by one man, his name being Jesus.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>But where sin increased, grace increased all the more &#8230; (Romans 5.20 NIV).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And that is the soil where the friend of the friend of Jesus grows.\u00a0 When you are around the person in the body or in spirit via email or telephone &#8230; iPad \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p>You taste God.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Psalm 34:8 (NIV)<br \/>\nTaste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And the ones in his garden taste awfully good also.\u00a0 Because in that holy place where God does his transforming work it is all about his righteousness being grown into us, absorbed through the precious soil of our salvation, cultivated by the Holy Spirit of God.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ\u2014to the glory and praise of God&#8221; (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Philippians+1&amp;version=NIV\">Philippians 1.11<\/a>).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Now that&#8217;s a tomato!<\/p>\n<p>What a friend is the friend of Jesus!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Psalm 32.1-2 NIV Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.\u00a0 2 Blessed is the man whose sin the LORD does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit. Sometimes as I write a &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/dave.dlscott.info\/?p=663\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3dxA8-aH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dave.dlscott.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dave.dlscott.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dave.dlscott.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dave.dlscott.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dave.dlscott.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dave.dlscott.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dave.dlscott.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dave.dlscott.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dave.dlscott.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}