Jesus is Our Friend

Jesus is Our Friend

Good Morning Friends,

We all need friends but few understand the basics of what it takes to form quality friendships that improve our health and connect us in a social network. Today’s scripture addresses this subject of friendship. Today’s technology both exploits and facilitates this process, bringing into focus the reality that not all friendships work out and that friendships are meant to be more than virtual. Scripture lets us know that to be a friend we must have common affections, mutual respect and similar interests. Without relationships that engage God we cannot thrive. That is why we can call each other, friends in Christ. But the best friends are not virtual, they are helpers in times of trouble…they are people who know how to love with the mind of Christ. That is why friendships are designed to facilitate teaching ministries and discipleship relationship that include God in the relationship. In this relationship we receive correction, training and reproof. In this relationship our friend is someone that we can trust to help us see our blind spots.  Here we discover that God is the closest companion we can have…that Jesus is Our Friend. 

Scripture: My friends, if anyone is detected in a transgression, you who have received the Spirit should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness. Take care that you yourselves are not tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. For if those who are nothing think they are something, they deceive themselves. All must test their own work; then that work, rather than their neighbor’s work, will become a cause for pride. For all must carry their own loads.

Galatians 6:1-5 (NRSV)

⁹As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. ¹⁰If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. ¹¹I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. ¹²“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. ¹³No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. ¹⁴You are my friends if you do what I command you. ¹⁵I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. ¹⁶You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. ¹⁷I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.

John 15:9- 15:17 (NRSV)

Message: The cross is the highest symbol of friendship. In God’s friendship we have life. Here the truth is spoken in love. Here Jesus’ face says yes to us even though the world says “no.”  Here we realize that we are not the only ones who fall short. Here we realize that our opinion of Christ depends less upon what we see in Him than upon what He makes us see in ourselves. Here we realize that God chooses us out of a love that never stops choosing us. Here sacrifice, submission and salvation converge in our acts of service…love for each other. Here we realize that we are so valuable to God that He laid down His life of us. Here we rejoice that He chooses to call us friends. Here we are encouraged to call each other friends in Christ.

Pray that Jesus becomes our greatest love, our most useful companion. Pray that our communication with God be open and clear, that we honor His noble suffering and acknowledge the severe truth of our existence, accepting His hearty counsel to join in the greatest union of minds we are capable of experiencing.
Pray that we find purpose in obeying God’s commands to love Him and each other.  Pray that we realize that Christ must be at the center of all relationships. Pray that we console others out of love. Pray that we affirm and encourage others out of love. Pray that we realize that it is a true a miracle of great wonder that God would desire us to be His friend. Pray that we learn to love like Jesus. Pray that God becomes our closest companion.
Pray that we help each other with our spiritual journeys…that in giving and receiving direction we become one in the Spirit…that in sharing our love we embrace a process of healing and redemption to the life God intended for us. Pray that we take common friendships and make them holy. Pray that God give us good friends and makes us good friends for others. Pray that Christ’s friendship for us leads us to the salvation of the cross, it leads us to grace… and it is here we learn to share love with others on the journey.

Blessings,

John Lawson