12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. 17 These things I command you, so that you will love one another. (John 15:12-17 ESV)
Jesus calls us “friends.” In fact, he chooses us to be his friends.
Here’s the question, are you acting like his friend? Or are you acting like a stranger? Maybe you’re acting like a frenemy? I don’t know about you, but this fact kind of blows me away because why would God choose me, of all people, to be one of his friends?
Sometimes I wonder why people are still friends with me. I don’t ever call. I don’t write. I’m not really emotive toward them, I don’t really share, whether good or bad. I don’t really join them where they are.
When I started thinking about this passage in light of Jesus choosing to call me his friend, I’m a little embarrassed to say that in many occasions, I’m not acting like a friend to Jesus. Not that I’m not friendly toward him, nor am I saying I don’t respect him or honor him. But I’m not treating him as my friend by spending the quality time with him. Sometimes, I treat it more like a business arrangement.
Jesus doesn’t want a business arrangement; he wants us to be his friends. Not because he needs friends, but because he wants us to have what friends have: an ally that can be trusted, a person who is always going to back their friend’s play, a person to see who he is and vice versa. Somebody to be loved and to love.
Are you being a good friend to Jesus? Or is it a one-way relationship?
Ask God to help you become a good friend and experience the fruits of our friendship with our Lord and Savior.
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