Category: We Are Friends of Jesus

Let’s read aloud the following verses:

John 15:13-17 (NIV)
13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17 This is my command: Love each other.

Jesus shared his heart with his disciples and called them friends just as they were about to fail so deeply. This shows our obedience is not a condition of being called his friends. Rather, Jesus is the one who laid down his life for us and  chose us to be his friends. Jesus came to his disciples and to us as a faithful friend and changes us to truly live as the friends who know and participate in what he is doing.

Prayer: Jesus, thank you that you chose us and laid down your life for us. Help us in your churches to love each other as you loved us, and to go and bear fruit that will last. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Let’s worship to “Yes Again” by Darlene Zschech (click here).

-CWR

Exodus 33:11 (NIV)
The LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend.

John 14:15 (NIV)
15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.

“The disciples now enjoy a new status as “friends of God,” a concept the Jewish people reserved for the great leaders of the past like Abraham and Moses. The depth of this new friendship is cemented by the fact that “everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” This would never be true for a slave, for he would never be allowed to “know his master’s business.” The disciples have been brought within the circle of divine truth and knowledge. This is brought even deeper by the Spirit, who reveals the depths of Christ’s knowledge to them (14:26; 16:13–15). [Grant Osborne, Verse by Verse]

Prayer: Lord Jesus, who are we that you would call us your friends? Thank you that you have brought us in to know your heart. Reveal more of your heart to us as we walk with you by your Spirit. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Let’s worship to “Fall Like Rain” by Passion (click here).

-CWR

 

Matthew 11:28-30 (NIV)
28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

“Christ’s heart for us means that he will be our never-failing friend no matter what friends we do or do not enjoy on earth. He offers us a friendship that gets underneath the pain of our loneliness. While that pain does not go away, its sting is made fully bearable by the far deeper friendship of Jesus. He walks with us through every moment.” (Ortlund, Gentle and Lowly)

While no friend on this earth can fully know our weariness and burdens, Jesus does. His friendship lightens our burdens as we bring everything to him in prayer, and experience the presence of our never-failing friend giving rest for our souls.

Prayer: Jesus, thank you that you are always with me. Draw me into deeper friendship with you as I bring all of my burdens to you. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Let’s worship to “Known by You” by Gateway Worship (click here).

-CWR

Matthew 9:11-12 (NIV)
11 When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

12 On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

“If we look at what our world and culture tells us a friend is, one of the key things we hear is that a true friend accepts us. They accept us as we are. I can be myself with them. I don’t have to pretend to be anything that I am not to be accepted by a true friend…Jesus completely resets our idea of friendships as he calls us his friends. Jesus fully accepted weary, burdened, sinners and tax collectors as he stepped into their lives to eat and drink with them. But he embraced and accepted them as a doctor who would never accept them remaining unwell.” (P. Stephen Ramos)

Prayer: Jesus, thank you that you fully see and know me, and that you do not accept the things in my life that are not well. Please heal and change me today. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Let’s worship to “Come Thou Fount (Above All Else)” by Shane and Shane (click here).

-CWR

Matthew 9:10-11 (NIV)
10 While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”  

Matthew 11:19 (NIV)
19 The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’

“Though the crowds call him the friend of sinners as an indictment, the label is one of unspeakable comfort for those who know themselves to be sinners…This is a companion whose embrace of us does not strengthen or weaken depending on how clean or unclean, how attractive or revolting, how faithful or fickle, we presently are.” (Ortlund, Gentle and Lowly)

Jesus immediately embraced Matthew and the others he ate with, and was not deterred by their sin or by the personal social cost and public shaming he received as a result. In the same way, Jesus embraced us from the start, and is unashamed to call us his friends.

Prayer: Jesus, thank you for embracing me even as I was unworthy to be called your friend. Help me to know your unwavering heart for me still today. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Let’s worship to “One and Only Jesus” by Vertical Worship (click here).

-CWR