Listen

This is my commandment: love each other just as I have loved you. No one has greater love than to give up one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I don’t call you servants any longer, because servants don’t know what their master is doing. Instead, I call you friends, because everything I heard from my Father I have made known to you.

John 15:12-15

Think

Good friends are hard to find. As we go through our lives, people come and go, but our closest friends stick with us through all of life’s challenges and celebrations. Great friends are those with whom we can share the roughest parts of our lives and they are going to love us no matter what. In today’s scripture, Jesus is calling us friends because he has shared with us everything that God has shared with him. When we have love for one another, we can share with others in that same kind of relationship that we share with Jesus. That is Jesus’ best hope for us as his followers, that we would have those people in our lives, whether it be our family or our closest friends with whom we can share anything. We can share the things that scare us, make us anxious, make us excited, and give us the greatest joy.

Zeke Stephenson

Question to Ponder:

Who are the people in your life to whom you feel the closest, with whom you could share anything?

Pray

Loving God, help me to be a good friend to the people in my life, so that I might have a strong support group to rely on for all things. Help me to be that same strong support for all of my friends. Amen.

Go

In loving your neighbor, may you see everyone as God sees them. May you see each person around you as the image bearer of our Creator. Go in peace to love God and love your neighbor.