True friendship

The idea of what a friend is has often been distorted in our culture. Many times, friendships are based on what is in it for us. We want friends that will serve our needs and give us what we want.

While it is true that friends should show us love and be there for us, friendship is so much more. Friendship is built on trust, love, and mutual support. Many times, friends will let us down, and when that happens, we should be there for them with an attitude of forgiveness and reconciliation.

Obviously, some friendships have to end because one of the people in the relationship is acting in destructive ways. If you are constantly lied to and mistreated, it may be appropriate and necessary to end the friendship.

However, Jesus offers a friendship that exceeds any other. In Romans, 5:6-8, Paul describes it this way: “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

A true friend will do something for you, even when you don’t deserve it. Jesus displays his love for us by giving his own life, even when we live in ways that hurt him.

But Jesus’ friendship is not just something he shows us. It is also something he asks us to live our in our own lives. In John 15:12-14, the apostle records the following words that Jesus spoke, “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.”

Jesus came to show us love and teach us love. He is a friend and asks us to be a friend as well. If we believe that Jesus is our friend, then we should learn from him what it means to be a friend. He once told an expert in the law, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind,” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37,39)

If we are going to have a friendship with Jesus, then we have to learn to be a friend like Jesus. And that is based on loving God and loving one another. Those two principles are at the heart of what true friendship looks like.

 

shine!
Jason