My Lord and My Friend

8/25/2020

John 15:15 “I have called you friends.”

How wonderful it must have been for the disciples to have Jesus call them friends. He was their Master and Teacher certainly, but He also loved them. In verse 9, He told them that just as His Father loves Him, so too does He love them. Just before that, He taught them about the vine and the branches, that the only way a branch produces fruit is to be connected to the vine, and of course, that vine is God with Whom my connection must always be. Later in chapter 15, He also tells them they will be persecuted just as He has been persecuted, but also that He had chosen them to be out of the world and its ways. In the middle of these teachings, Jesus gives them this command in verse 12 and 13: “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Jesus not only laid down His life for the disciples, but for you and me as well; His sacrifice was for all people.

It is true that each lesson Jesus taught is at once timeless and timely, and certainly applies to every believer. When I really examine my walk, though, I need to ask myself some questions. How am I at loving others? Am I willing and ready to lay down my life for my friends? Am I so self-absorbed by what is going on in my personal life that I have neglected the people around me? Do I only love those who I find loveable? Am I producing fruit or sacrificing for others joyfully?

Is Jesus and His friendship enough for me, or am I still flirting with the world? Am I living by the Bible and its commands, or am I being tossed about by the raging storm? Where does my devotion lie? Can others see the light of Jesus’ friendship in me? Chambers again gives a vision of what true friendship with Jesus looks like: “It is a friendship based on the new life created in us which has no affinity with our old life, but only with the life of God. It is unutterably humble, unsulliedly pure, and absolutely devoted to God.”

I am, as always, a work in progress.