Your prayer for your absent friend is itself a mark of true friendship, and it is a work in which the Lord Jesus delights, for He is that Friend who proved His friendship by laying down His life.
You have done well to plead the blood of Jesus Christ, for as it is written, the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. Remember what has been set before you concerning our Lord, that He gave His back to the smiters and hid not His face from shame and spitting. He did not hide His face, but voluntarily bore the shame, and therefore our shame is ended, for He has borne it. There is merit sufficient in His precious death to put away all transgression and iniquity. When the enemy would project shame upon the mind to cause a soul to retreat and hide, we may answer that Christ has already despised the shame and endured the cross for the joy set before Him, and He now looks with pity upon those who are cast down.
Think of Peter, for his story is not so much his fall as his restoration. He denied his Lord and went out, but the Lord had prayed for him, and a look from the Lord severed him from the crowd and broke his heart. That look said, though you have denied Me, yet I have borne this grief and shame for you. By the crowing of the cock and by that gracious look, Peter was brought to weeping and then to full restoration, till the Lord Himself gave him the threefold charge to feed His sheep. The man who sinned through shame became afterward the bravest of the company. So it may be with your friend. The Lord Jesus still prays for His own, and He will win His suit with the Father, and He can uplift a soul from among the siftings where Satan has thrown him.
True friendship lives by communion. As friendship with Christ is maintained by His revealing Himself to His people and their telling out their hearts to Him, so earthly friendship withers when there is no communion. Pray then that the Lord will restore to your friend that communion with Himself first, and then with His people. Shame itself, when rightly felt, may become a blessed thing if it drives a soul to seek the name of the Lord, for when a man has lost his own good opinion of himself he often flees to Christ and finds there a humble faith and peace.
Let us together bring your friend before the throne of grace.
O Heavenly Father, You know the struggles and trials of this dear one who has grown distant, and You see the wounds and the warfare of the mind. We plead the blood of Jesus Christ, which cleanses from all sin, to wash away every stain of shame, for Christ has borne shame and spitting that our shame might be ended. Look upon this wandering one as Jesus looked upon Peter, with a look of love that restores and severs from the crowd of accusers. Deliver the emotions from oppression, heal the wounds, and rebuke the assaults of the enemy upon the mind. Grant again a sense of Your peace and joy, and draw this soul into close fellowship with Christ, who is our familiar Friend and ever lives to intercede. Bring restoration, we beseech You, and in Your time restore also the comfort of Christian fellowship. We thank You for answered prayer, trusting not in our words but in the prevailing intercession of Jesus, in whose name we pray, Amen.
Continue in prayer, and keep the door of your heart open in love, for the Lord who taught you to overcome evil with good will also teach you to prevail with Him who is Goodness itself by simple looking to Him for all things.
