A letter to my unrepentant friend

Dear friend,

I became your friend because of Jesus, and I will continue to be your friend because of Him. Though you’ve marked me as your enemy, you’re still my friend. Though you’ve made it clear you never want to see me or hear from me again, you’re still my friend. You can stop me from being your friend on social media, but you can’t stop me from being your friend in life.

The Bible says, “a friend loves at all times” (Proverbs 17:17). So just as I loved you when you loved me, I love you now — though you hate me.

I loved you when you hated your sin, and I still love you now that you love your sin. I love you in season or out of season. I will love you whether you want me to or not. I am your friend: I will love you at all times.

That doesn’t mean I am not disappointed — I am.  Actually, it’s more than that. You know I’m not easily hurt, and yet you’ve deeply hurt me. After all the years I’ve committed to being a faithful friend to you, it hurts that in just a few months — you would so quickly and so adamantly tell me you want nothing to do with me.

I never imagined that what you loved most about me is what you would come to hate most about me. You used to beg me to come to see you so I would remind you of what the Bible says about your suffering, now you’re begging me to stay away from you because I’m reminding you of what the Bible says about your sin.

I have not changed, my friend — you have. Jesus hasn’t changed either — you have. Though you now love the sin you used to hate, Jesus hasn’t changed: He still hates the sin you now love.

Therefore you’re not just breaking fellowship with Christians, you’re breaking fellowship with Christ. You’ve said you no longer want to live by the expectations of Christians, but what you really mean is that you no longer want to live by the expectations of Christ. 

If you don’t want a relationship with Jesus’ Church, you don’t want a relationship with Jesus.

You’ve abandoned godly relationships with believers for ungodly relationships with unbelievers. I used to think you were unequally yoked with unbelievers, but maybe you’re not unequally yoked at all—maybe you’re just like them: an unbeliever.

The Bible says:  “You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God” (James 4:4).

By forsaking your covenant with Jesus, you’ve become an adulterous person. You’ve decided that you want to become friends with the world and enemies with Christ.

I’m concerned that though you once received the Gospel with joy, perhaps it didn’t take root in your heart. Therefore though you believed for a while, in a time of testing — you’re showing signs of unbelief, and you’re in danger of falling away.

You don’t need me, my friend. As much as I don’t want to lose you, you don’t need a relationship with me. However, you need a relationship with Jesus. You need Jesus.

Unlike your relationship with me, your relationship with Jesus is a matter of life and death. If you continue to choose your sin over your savior, you will die in the wrath of God. However, if you repent and choose your savior over your sin, you will live in the grace of God.

So my unrepentant friend, please come back to Christ. Please remember the Gospel. Remember that being fully God, Jesus was miraculously born by the virgin Mary and became a man. Therefore being fully God and fully man, he lived the perfect and righteous life that you and I have failed to live. So that dying on the cross, Jesus He bore sin, imputed His righteousness to redeemed sinners, and in three days he resurrected for their justification. Then he ascended to Heaven and is currently interceding for Christians before he returns to judge the world.

So please remember the Gospel. And please remember what the Bible says in 1 John 1:5-10: 

“This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

From your friend,
Samuel 

Originally published at Slow to Write.