You Are My Friends…

You Are My Friends…

What would we do for one of our true friends? Would we lay down our life for someone that we would call a true friend? If not, they are not who we proclaim them to be; they are nothing more than someone we are acquainted. We would not defend them, we would not stand up for them.

On the other hand when we have a true friend, we would lay down our life, it would be a joy to do so. It would be a response, without thought, to a given situation if we saw our friend in danger and we could make it stop or change course. We would, in fact, take a bullet for our friend. Ask any soldier who has seen combat.

Jesus Christ already did that for us whom He has called, whom He chose.

You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. These things I command you, that you love one another. ~ John 15:14-17 NKJB

The commandment, we are reminded once again, is that we love one another and in doing so we love Jesus Christ. All of the people we come in contact with each day are His children. They do not have to be called by Jesus to be His child. Each person is from God. Jesus calls those to Him which are His friends. We do not know who are His friends and who is not. Therefore, we should act accordingly and believe that each is, in fact, a friend of Jesus Christ. Why would we be concerned with what this world believes about us? We are not of this world and we do not answer to this world. We answer to Jesus Christ who is above this world, made everything in this world and will call us home to His heavenly place, to His mansion.

“If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me. ~ John 15:18-21 NKJB

We should not be afraid in speaking of our friend. We should not back down when given the opportunity to share His name with others. The world already hates us, so what is another scorned face, what difference does it make if there is another back turned, what is another person that rejects us and we shake the dust from our sandals as we leave their home? If someone rejects peace and joy, well…let that sink in…someone rejects peace and joy.

Either the Scripture is the divine Word of God teaching us how to live and how to be a reflection of God, or it’s nothing more than a historical account of events.