FRIENDSHIP and YOU

Monday

Greater Love – John 15:12-15

12 This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.

13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

14 Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.

15 Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.

 

EXAMPLE

What is a friend? Friends are people with whom you dare to be yourself. Your soul can be naked with them. They ask you to put on nothing, only to be what you are. They do not want you to be better or worse. When you are with them, you feel as a prisoner feels who has been declared innocent. You do not have to be on your guard. You can say what you think, as long as it is genuinely you. Friends understand those contradictions in your nature that lead others to misjudge you. With them you breathe freely. You can avow your little vanities and envies and hates and vicious sparks, your meannesses and absurdities, and in opening them up to friends, they are lost, dissolved on the white ocean of their loyalty. They understand. You do not have to be careful. You can abuse them, neglect them, tolerate them. Best of all, you can keep still with them. It makes no matter. They like you. They are like fire that purges to the bone. They understand. You can weep with them, sing with them, laugh with them, pray with them. Through it all–and underneath–they see, know, and love you. A friend? What is a friend? Just one, I repeat, with whom you dare to be yourself.

– C. Raymond Beran

 

LESSON

Robert Louis Stevenson’s tells a story of two sisters in Edinburgh. These sisters lived comfortably in a rather large one-room apartment. But one day they had a sharp disagreement.

As time passed, their anger grew, and they stopped speaking to each other. Instead of resolving their dispute or one of them moving out, they both stubbornly remained in the apartment– all the while refusing to communicate. Stevenson wrote, “A chalk line drawn upon the floor separated their two domains; it bisected the doorway and the fireplace, so that each could go out and in and do her cooking without violating the territory of the other. So, for years, they coexisted in a hateful silence.” How foolish!

It is a sad thing when we draw off areas of our lives and will not allow Jesus to enter those areas. He longs to be our friend and if we will lower our defenses and let him enter, He will do just that and will come in unto us and will be the best Friend we have ever had.

Jesus gave everything to his friends—his knowledge of God and his own life. Jesus is our model for friendship because he loved without limits, and he makes it possible for us to live a life of friendship because we have been transformed by everything he shared with us.

 

QUESTIONS

1. Why do we rarely use “friendship” today to describe the deep love that Jesus and the Father have for us?
2. How has the meaning of the word changed from the ancient times?
3. How was Jesus’ entire life and death an act of friendship?

 

Memory verse: Luke 6:31