How does this word resonate with you? What does it mean? Do you use the word lightly… like love? What qualities define ‘friend’? Actually… how do you define the word and operationalize it?
Perhaps ‘friend’, for you, is comparable to the 600+ people you have friended on Facebook? And just how often do you communicate with them… individually. Or, is it more like a post sent out to the ‘public’? If you noticed a touch of asperity… spot on. For some people it almost feels like a notch on the gun when they indicate they are ‘friends’ with (fill in the blank). Are friends important to us? Why? What makes a friend different from someone else?
Personally, I think when I say someone is a friend, that it takes on a greater importance. It means that we have spent time together and have begun, on some level, to know one another and have decided that this is good. One very critical component is trust. I do not throw trust around… it really is ‘earned’ and typically, over time. It’s not that we have to agree on everything, rarely does this happen, but that in the essential issues of life – we are in one accord.
Many of the scriptural references/definitions is found in Proverbs (AMP):
“As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” (27:17)
“A friend loves at all times, And a brother is born for adversity.” (17:17)
“He who walks [as a companion] with wise men will be wise, But the companions of [conceited, dull-witted] fools [are fools themselves and] will experience harm.” (13:20)
And probably the best known: John 15:13
“No one has greater love [nor stronger commitment] than to lay down his own life for his friends.”
Jesus talked about friends and friendship;
“I do not call you servants any longer, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you [My] friends, because I have revealed to you everything that I have heard from My Father. You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you and I have appointed and placed and purposefully planted you, so that you would go and bear fruit and keep on bearing, and that your fruit will remain and be lasting, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name [as My representative] He may give to you. This [is what] I command you:that you love and unselfishly seek the best for one another.” (John 15:15-17, AMP)
And from other words that Jesus spoke, I believe that we can infer that this gift of friendship is extended to us who believe and act as His friend. How can I presume and assume this??? Because Jesus began His discussion by saying: “You are my friends if you keep on doing what I command you.” (John 15:14)
Even a cursory glance indicates that there are definite and distinguishable actions and beliefs that unscore friend, friendship. It is not casual. There are foundational expectations such as found in verse 14: “…if you keep on doing what I command you.” Reason? “…so that you go and bear fruit and keep on bearing…” (16)
Those are strong characteristics of friendship. Friends and friendship is no little consideration. Plus, we need one another. But… You do realize that you can be friendly without being friends? You do realize that you can be friendly to others and still not negate who you are, Whose you are, and what you believe? However… you really don’t want the Lord to only be an acquaintance… do you?
