Introduction
When you are in the world, you make friends easily; you may have “drinking friends,” “smoking friends,” “partying friends,” etc. However, when you become a follower of the Lord Jesus, you may lose all your worldly friends. You start attending church, and you have a hard time making new friends. Moreover, in today’s church environment, there are many acquaintances that we can call “Hi and Bye” friends, but you may not have a true friend with whom you can fellowship in the Lord. Additionally, although we may attend church regularly, we often feel that we don’t fit in or that there are aspects we dislike or don’t understand. Then, we, ourselves, become “Hi and Bye” friends not only with other believers but with the Lord; we just go for a short time on Sundays to the church, and that’s it, and for the rest of the week, we live our lives in our own way without caring about the Word of God.
The Lord Jesus Is Our Best Friend to Have
As a follower of the Lord Jesus, our true friend should be the Lord Jesus Himself; He is the best friend to have. So, are we just a “Hi and Bye” type of friend with the Lord Jesus or a true friend? Do we just randomly open the Bible and read random passages in the Bible, or do we truly meditate on the Word of God daily and systematically? Do we understand the suffering of the Lord Jesus, and do we know about His life on earth and why He came to earth? Do we have an intimate relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ?
The Lord Jesus knows everything about us, and He wants us to be His friends. So, the question for us is: how do we become a friend of God?
In John 15:12-15, the Lord Jesus tells us what it means to be a friend of God.
John 15:12 This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
The verse tells all readers that the beloved Son of God has given this love commandment to all humans. Therefore, if you listen and obey His teaching, love each other because you cannot do anything worthy of His love only when you obey His orders by loving each other as He has loved you, and His love has shown to you by Him accepting to be crucified on the cross: no love is greater than this. If you truly obey His teaching, love one another.
13 Greater love than this no one has, that anyone should lay down his life for his friends.
As the verse has told, there is no greater love than what the beloved Son of God has done, to give His life for mankind; but make sure you all remember, the Father has loved humans so much as well until He has sent the only begotten Son to come down on earth for all mankind to have a way to glorify and thank the Father; the beloved Son of God has become the bridge for all mankind to succeed in glorifying the Father.
14 You are My friends, if you do what I command you.
The beloved Son of God has said to all humans to be His friends and follow His commandments; to be the friend of God also includes following the commandments and glorifying the Father.
15 No longer I call you servants because the servant does not know what his master is doing; however, I have called you friends because all things that I heard from My Father, I have made known to you.
The beloved Son of God has defined being a friend with Him; He did not call you a servant for just receiving the order, but He calls you a friend because you have kept His commandments, with your own will, you have listened and obeyed His commandments; the servant is forced to do what the master orders, but a friend is willing to do what the friend has told. There is a difference between the two in worshiping and glorifying the Lord of lords. We are His friends because we read the Holy Bible, and we do, but the servants need the master to order to do what they are not willing to do by themselves.
“However, I have called you friends …” The beloved Son of God has called you friend because whatever He heard from the Father, He has expressed in your heart what needs to be done. And those things you do for your own good, and at the same time, you glorify the Father as well. The servant will not glorify the master, just have fear only; the Lord of Life does not need fear but joyful obedience in receiving guidelines and advice. His advice is not an order, but it is a guideline for your soul to come closer and have a relationship with the God Almighty. Everybody can read the Holy Bible, but the voice in the heart will lead to understanding; there is a difference between merely reading and truly understanding what you are reading. The beloved Son wants to ensure that His true believers not only read but also understand.
Conclusions
The Father has shown His love towards all humans by sending His beloved Son into the world to bring salvation to all by His death on the cross, as we find from Romans 5:8, which says, “But God shows His own love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Therefore, the only way we can become friends with the Trinity of God (God the Father, God the Son Jesus, and God the Holy Spirit) is by faith in the beloved Son of God, Jesus Christ, and by His grace to forgive our sins and bring us closer to God the Father. We must believe in the beloved Son of God, and then, we become righteous in front of God through His Son; our righteousness is in God’s beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 1:30, Romans 5:19, Romans 10:4, 2 Corinthians 5:21). Then we can become friends of God like Abraham who had faith in God, as written in James 2:23, “and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him for righteousness; and he was called the friend of God.”
Meditation Tasks:
- Meditate on Psalm 22:4, “Our fathers trusted in Thee; They trusted, and Thou delivered them.”
- Meditate on Proverbs 18:24, “He that makes many friends does it to his own destruction; But there is a friend that sticks closer than a brother.”
- Meditate on Proverbs 17:17, “A friend loves at all times; And a brother is born for adversity.”