Our Friendship with Jesus
Our Friendship with Jesus.
“There is a friend that sticks closer than a brother.” (Proverbs 18:24).
Why did God create mankind? He didn’t need to, because He is utterly and eternally complete within the intimate communion of the Trinity. So He doesn’t really need us as if we could complete Him in any way. One simple way to look at this basic question is this… God created humanity because God is love, He wanted to spread around His love. He is so full of love that He wanted to create people in His image with whom He could enjoy friendship. God created us to have deep fellowship with Him, and He gets great joy out of that fellowship with each of us. He didn’t create us because it would complete Him in some way, He created us knowing that friendship with Him would complete us! The Trinity is so full of love that they couldn’t resist sharing their love with beings made in His image.
“This is my command: that you keep on agape-loving each other just as I have agape-loved you. No one has greater agape-love than a person who lays down his life for his friends. You are my friends, if you do what I command you. I no longer call you servants, because a servant doesn’t know what his master is about; but I have called you friends, because everything I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.” (John 15:12-15).
Philos-Friend. In his gospel, St. John, “the one who Jesus loved,” consistently used the Greek term “phileo” as the base word for ‘friend.’ A philos love is the warm affection reserved for a family member or close friend, and is an experiential word. Brotherly/sisterly love for a friend needs to be demonstrated in action that proves the truth of the love. The love of an intimate friendship is authentic when lived out in personal action. A philos friendship is a deep companionship that can never be taken for granted in a relationship. It is more like a covenant, a shared and mutual commitment to each other.
Agape Love. The agape-love that Jesus highlights as His kind of love for His disciples can be described this way… Agape love is the supreme of all the loves, and desires the highest good of someone else. Agape is “the highest level of love known to humanity,” (C. S. Lewis), and thus can only come from above with God as its source. Agape love is the ultimate expression of God’s nature, the essence of His character (see Exodus 34). Agape love is not Eros, which is romantic love. It is not Phileo, which is deep friendship/brotherly love. It is not Storge, which is family love. Agape love is the divine love that can only come to us from the heart of God. Agape love is the love shared between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. God is truly the source of all these other loves, but it is only agape love that is poured into our hearts from the Holy Spirit, to those who believe in Christ. Agape love is an eternal virtue outlasting all the other virtues (1 Corinthians 13:8). Agape love is the primary fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22). Agape love, the sacred love of God, is universal in its application, it is a gift from the Holy Spirit, it is highly active to prove its existence, it is sacrificial to the extreme, and it is unconditional with no strings attached. Agape was translated into Latin as Caritas, and thus agape has long been translated as Charity.
CityAlight – He Calls Me Friend (Live) – YouTube
Qualities of Friendship with Jesus. What goes into developing a friendship with someone? And then what in particular does our friendship with Jesus look like? The qualities of a committed friendship in general, and especially in our growing friendship with Christ, might include:
- Trust in Christ’s motives, actions, and personal character;
- Obedience of what Jesus asks us to do in order to demonstrate our love for Him;
- Transparency and complete, honest openness with Christ, keeping no secrets from Him;
- Loyalty to Christ, and our faithful relationship with Him in a covenant commitment to our friendship;
- Sacrifices come second nature in our friend-love for Jesus, self-denial to the point of death;
- Mutual relationship in our love for Christ and His love for us, not a one-sided relationship, but instead a deep two-way sharing of the love between Jesus and each of us. We reciprocate each other’s love in a deep give-and-take way. Jesus has already proven trustworthy in all the qualities that makes up a deep friendship. The Holy Spirit continues to do so now for each of us.
- Vulnerable in our relationship with Jesus, unafraid to reveal our weaknesses in his presence, willing to confess and reveal all our flaws with Him as we approach His throne of grace;
- Patience in the process of developing our friendship with Christ. Anything that goes this soul-deep takes time, effort, ongoing trust, and an intentional desire to maintain intimacy with Him.
Consider that Jesus seemed to be everybody’s friend. He was so full of love for people that He couldn’t be otherwise. Christ was the friend of sinners and outcasts as well as the faithful few who followed Him He was the pure Son of God who was perfectly comfortable touching all the untouchables in His society, purifying those considered unclean. He told stories about restoring friendship through forgiveness, such as the Prodigal Son. Jesus loved being the friend of the friendless, the One who accepted the rejected. He didn’t just blithely mention that there is no greater love than to lay down his life for his friends. He knew only too well that in His immediate future was the Cross. As we follow Him in earnest, His Spirit is within us as our Friend, remaking us into people who would follow in Jesus’ footsteps.
As we think about what Jesus meant when He told His disciples in His last days, “No longer do I call you servants… You are my friends.” (John 15:14-15), we come across with the stunning idea that the pure and righteous Son of God was also “a friend of sinners.” And then to complete the Trinity, we find that the Holy Spirit is a Friend as well, wonderfully described with the name used in John, the “paraclete,” “one who is called to come alongside of.” (John 14:15-26). So there we have it. God the Father had friends in the Hebrew Bible. The Son Jesus developed His friends with practically everyone He met. And the Holy Spirit is now our Friend as we grow in Christ. Do we need any more proof that our Creator has maintained a desire to build friendships with mankind ever since the Garden? Yes, indeed, we do have a friend that sticks closer than a brother, and that friend is God!