Sacrificial Love in Friendships (1 Samuel 20:17)

In this episode of Pray the Word on 1 Samuel 20:17, David Platt encourages believers to embody sacrificial love toward those around them.

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Pray the word with David Platt is a resource from radical.net. First Samuel chapter twenty verse seventeen. And Jonathan made David swear again by his love for him, for he loved him as he loved his own soul. Is that not a powerful picture of friendship? What a great description of love between friends. He loved him as he loved his own soul. Don't you want to be a friend like that to others? Don't we want to have friendships where we love like this and we are loved like this? How meaningful is it to have someone else love us as they love their own soul? Just that phrase makes me think about God's grace and people who've loved me and cared for me in my life. I have so many people to be thankful for. Family, friends, brothers and sisters in the church. My life is the fruit of people who have loved and cared for me. And I want others' lives to be the fruit of my love and care for them. Don't we all want this? We want to receive this and reflect this kind of love. So let's just pray for this in our lives and in others' lives. Oh God, based on 1 Samuel 20, 17, we pray that you'd help us to be friends like this. Help us to love others as our own soul. Just as you taught us, Jesus, to love you, oh God, with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love others as ourselves. Help us to love the people around us as ourselves. Help us to be friends like this, brothers and sisters in Christ and the church like this. Help us to be family members like this. Help us to love spouses, kids, parents, siblings as our own souls. God, we pray you help us to love those who don't know you as our own souls. Help us to care about their souls and to share the gospel with them out of love for them. And God, we pray for this kind of love in our lives. We pray for friends and family who will love us like they love their own souls. We ask for these kinds of relationships. We want to experience what 1 Samuel 2017 is talking about in our lives. God, we thank you for your good design and friendship. This gift. Help us to steward this gift, to cultivate good friendships for your glory. Even as we think about Jesus, your words to us, you no longer call us servants, but you call us friends. We praise you for your love for us, for loving me, for loving us as your friends, for laying down your life for our souls. All glory be to your name. And even for this privilege in prayer right now, oh God, we think about Exodus 33, how Moses would speak face to face with you. God, thank you for this invitation to experience and express love and friendship and relationship with you, the God of the universe. Oh, God, help us to lead other people to love people around us enough to lead them to love relationship with you. God, we pray specifically today for the Iwana people of Kenya, for 24,000 among the Iwana. Please, oh God, may the good news of your love, of friendship with you through faith in Jesus spread to the Iwana people of Kenya. Please bless the church in Kenya, other parts of the Horn of Africa there for the spread of your love to the Iwana. God help us to love the nations as we love ourselves, to love them enough to spend our lives spreading the good news of your love to them. We pray all this in light of your word in 1 Samuel chapter 20, verse 17. In Jesus' name, amen.