“13 No one has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 I do not call you servants anymore, because a servant doesn’t know what his master[b] is doing. I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have heard from my Father.” – 1 John 15:13-15
I was looking at my Facebook page the other day and happen to glance and notice that I have over 800 “friends”. Wow, who knew so many people like me, right? So I decided to take this information and smugly click over to Stephanie’s page and compare. What I saw floored me…. 1.3k “friends”. What?!?!?! (I always knew people liked her more than me!) I am not sure I even know that many people, much less have that many friends. But as we all know, Facebook has a much broader definition of friend than you and I do.
You see, I know a lot of people. I am even friendly to a lot of people. But to label someone as a friend, requires much more scrutiny. A friend is someone I know, like, and share much of my life with on a regular basis. I definitely do NOT have over 800 “friends” and that number is much, much lower than that.
So when I hear Jesus call me His friend, it hits differently. He isn’t talking in “Facebook” terminology, but rather talking in terms of intimacy and closeness. Imagine with me, the Creator of the universe, the King of kings, the Lamb of God, the Miracle Worker, the Healer, the Exalted One, the Anointed Christ, and the Savior of the World refers to me as His friend. Are you kidding me?
I brag about the time I met Magic Johnson and speak of him as if he has any clue whatsoever about who I am, from one encounter I had with him 30+ years ago. So, imagine how it feels, when this One who says we are closer than a brother, refers to me.
As we continue this month in delving into to what it means to know Christ, the great news is that He wants to be known and wants to closer to you tomorrow than you are today. That evens refers to us who feel close to Him already. He is just waiting on you. He will get as close as you willing to allow to Him be. The problem is that knowing Christ more and more reveals more about to us, and as a a
consequence reveals more about ourselves, things we would rather just keep hidden.
But there is great joy and blessing in knowing Him more and more, and whatever discomfort and sorrow that comes as a result, is worth every tear and every hurt.
Following Him,
Pastor Jeff