Imagine one of the greatest athletes in the world heard you wished you could talk to him or her? The next thing you know they call you for the explicit purpose of meeting you for lunch. As amazed as you are with them they think you are really special too and they want to strike up a friendship! You would fall over. You’d be telling everyone you know.
Maybe instead of it being a world famous athlete it is the most popular musician/singer on the planet who reaches out to you! This celebrity tells you that some people contacted them and said you’d like to meet them before you die. They were so honored that they decided to reach out to you. The next thing you know you are right there – smack dab in their presence. You are laughing with each other and discussing life issues. They then say, “Let’s be friends and start hanging out”. Well, now you are ready to die and go to heaven.
That sounds like hocus pocus but what if it was a reality? What if the greatest of all time was willing to be your friend?! God is actually willing to do that. Jesus is actually willing to be your friend. The Lamb of God, the Son of God, the Messiah is willing to be in a friendship with you.
What’s awesome about it is that our relationship with God is not master-slave nor overlord-lowlife; rather it is a relationship with God as Father AND FRIEND. James 2:23 says of Abraham, “and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” and he was called the friend of God”. It’s frightening and shocking that James 4:4 says, “ You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God”. I’d rather be a friend of God and an enemy of the world than a friend of the world and an enemy of God. But again, how amazing is it that God is willing to let us be His friends! It changes how we view living for God. Instead of obeying God grudgingly we obey God because we value and treasure our friendship.
Read John 15:1-23. Then listen to I Am a Friend of God by Phillips, Craig and Dean. Then be a loyal friend to Jesus today.
John 15:1-23
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 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. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: Love each other.
“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my Father as well.