Friendship part 1
This Rant series was Logan's idea. I asked him what I should Rant about and he said, "Don't you always just talk about love?" Um... yes. "Friends are people you choose to love," he pointed out. And he's right. Because according to Jesus, according to John 15:13, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." You how love by giving everything you have and everything you are to your friends. Now the word, "friends" here is number 5384 in Strong's Greek Concordance and it means, "dear, that is, a friend; actively fond, that is friendly (still as a noun, an associate, neighbor, etc.)." So it means someone you're fond of, but it encompasses your neighbor. And when Jesus was asked--by a lawyer no less--who exactly our neighbors are (Luke 10:29), Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan. Then this happened, "Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves? And he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise" (Luke 10:36-37). And the point that people seem to miss in all of this is that the Samaritan was a Gentile. If the Jewish lawyer was going to consider ANYONE his neighbor, it wasn't going to be the Samaritan. But the lawyer had to admit that compassion wins the day. So when we think about the greatest expression of love that someone can have--laying your life down for your friends--we need to understand first of all that God so loved the WORLD that He gave His only begotten Son. When Jesus was lifted up from the earth on the cross He drew ALL Men unto Himself. In the Bible there are times when God specifically labels people as His friend. Moses, for example, in Exodus 33:11. Or Abraham, in James 2:23. But the point I'm trying to make is that that's how God sees us. In fact, when God looks at us He sees Jesus. And when He looks at Jesus He sees us. Because Jesus is IN us, and because we are IN Jesus. So this idea of laying your life down for your friends... that's exactly what Jesus did on the cross. For all of us. When the Holy Spirit dwelt AMONG us instead of WITHIN us, Jesus considered us friends. He was a friend of sinners. He didn't disqualify anybody (except religious folk, and part of the reason for that was so that the rest of us could be grafted in). He considered us all friends. So this idea of us laying our lives down for our friends, or our neighbors, can really extend all the way to the point where we ought to lay our lives down for anybody we come into contact with! Abraham Lincoln said something along the lines of, "I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends." And that's called killing them with kindness. That's called giving eveything you have and everything you are no matter how its received. No matter if it seems like the more you love the less you are loved. Because people are suspicious of love oftentimes. Because it seems like its too good to be true. But when you start to love people--ALL people, regardless of who they are or what they're doing--you find yourself becoming fond of them. You find those things that might come between you melting under the consuming fire that IS God. The consuming fire that is love. The consuming fire that consumes everything except itself. So that only love remains. So that we begin to see ourselves as God sees us. As brothers and sisters. As... friends.