Today’s entry, April 3, in Octavius Winslow’s Morning Thoughts, leads with Proverbs 18:24.

There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

Making application to Jesus, the friend of sinners, Winslow writes:

There is no sympathy, no love, no gentleness, no tenderness, no patience, like Christ’s! Oh how sweet, how encouraging, to know that Jesus sympathetically enters into my afflictions—my temptations—my sorrows—my joys. May this truth endear Him to our souls! May it constrain us to unveil our whole heart to Him, in the fullest confidence of the closest, most sacred, and precious friendship. May it urge us to do those things always which are most pleasing in His sight. Beloved, never forget—let these words linger upon your ear, as the echoes of music that never die—in all your sorrows, in all your trials, in all your needs, in all your assaults, in all your conscious wanderings, in life, in death, and at the day of judgment—you possess a friend that sticks closer than a brother! That friend is Jesus!

As we observe this Good Friday day of remembering the sacrifice of the Son of God on the cross, may we also recall and treasure the words of Jesus in John 15:13.

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends.

Hallelujah, what a Savior! He calls me, he calls you, friend, and sticks closer than a brother.