Friendship part 5
Friends are people you choose to love. Words of wisdom from my five year old. And as far as I'm concerned, its easier to just choose to love everybody. Because love is not about what people can, or have, or will do for you. Love is about what you can do for them. Giving everything you are and everything you have to someone no matter what the result is. Laying your life down for your friends. And I'm telling you, when you start laying your life down for people, you will start making friends. Because its really hard to NOT like someone who is loving you. And because when you are loving someone you begin to see them as God sees them. You begin to see their hearts (what's underneath) instead of just their actions (the surface stuff). And I'm convinced that the only REAL way to line up with people is for me to line up with Jesus--with love--and for you to line up with Jesus--again, love--and then we will automatically line up with each other. That's called relationship. And it is built on the rock solid foundation that is love. I mentioned a few days ago about how we kind of go to extremes with our best friends. Like, we will let them get away with anything. But we will also call them out on their nonsense. Right? Because we love them. And because we love them we will also go to extremes with ourselves. We will drop anything in order to DO anything for them. Because we love them. Now just think about how different the world would be if we treated everybody, if we LOVED everybody, the way we do our best friend. And I get it, that kind of bond is rare. Its precious. Its precious BECAUSE its rare. But that level of maximum effort doesn't have to be rare. That level of maximum effort is what love is. And that's who WE are. Not just what we do, but who we are. Because that's who God is. Not just what God does, but who God IS. Its His nature. And He gave that nature to us when He gave His Son to us. When Jesus gave His life for us, and gave His life to us. So its our nature. Not the selfish beast nature that we had in Adam, before the cross, but the selfless love nature that we have now in Christ. The last few days when I've been working on this Rant series I've had that song that goes, "I am a friend of God... I am a friend of God... I am a friend of God He calls me friend" stuck in my head. (Its probably called Friend of God, but I digress.) My point is: Its important that we know how God sees us. Because that's how we ought to see each other. I pointed out a couple of instances in the Bible where people--Moses, Abraham, etc--are identified as God's friends. But the truth of the matter is, God so loved THE WORLD that He gave His only begotten Son. The truth is we are ALL friends of God. We just don't act like it because we don't know it and believe it. And the best way to know it and believe it is to live it. To treat each other like friends and brothers (and sisters). The best way to experience something is to share it. The best way to feel love is to love someone. The best way to feel forgiven is to forgive someone. The best way to feel friendship--probably the only way--is to be friendly. That's what I endeavor to teach Logan; you have to BE a friend to HAVE a friend. You choose to love people and then you experience love as you give it away. That's what love is for. That's what its all about! Receive it and release it. Have a friend by BEING a friend!