(vs 9)As the Father has loved me,
so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.( 10) If you obey my
commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my
Fathers commands and remain in His love.( 11) I have told you this
so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.
(12) My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. (
13) Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life
for his FRIENDS. (14) You are my FRIENDS if you do what I command.
(15) I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not
know his masters 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 to
go and bear-fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you
whatever you ask in my name. (17) This is my command: Love each
other.
This
was pretty cool to me the first time I read this. Jesus is hanging
out with all the disciples and things are going great. Jesus is
teaching, His disciples are hanging on every word and loving every
minute they get to spend with Jesus. If you’ll notice, Jesus
refers to His disciples as FRIENDS 3 times. Yeah, they’re all
friends. They support each other, they care for each other, they
love each other.They’ve got each others’ backs.
Now, let’s fast forward. Jesus
has been betrayed by one of His own, Judas. His friend Peter, has
denied Him three times, Thomas now doubts Him and the others ran
away when things got tough. Jesus is sentenced to death on a cross
and none of His so called friends does a thing about it. Jesus is
crucified on the cross and He dies. Now days later the disciples
are all upset and confused. They have nothing to do, no teacher to
learn from and follow. So, they go back to doing what they know
best….Fish. Lets pickup the story in John 21. (1)Afterward Jesus
appeared again to His disciples, by the Sea of Tiberias. It
happened this way: (2) Simon Peter, Thomas (called Didymus),
Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other
disciples were together. (3) “I’m going out to fish,” Simon Peter
told them, and they said, “We’ll go with you.” So they went out
and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. (4)
Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples
did not realize that it was Jesus. (5) He called to them,
“FRIENDS, haven’t you any fish?” John 21:1-5
Um, did you catch that? The men that
supposedly knew Jesus so well and supported Him didn’t even
recognize Him. They have now come face to face with the risen
Savior. Awkward! Remember what happened… Peter denied Him, Thomas
doubted Him, and all the rest faded into the background when
things got tough. If I was one of those disciples, I would have
hung my head in shame for not defending Jesus or sticking close by
Him. But, after all they did, Jesus calls out to them and
addresses them as FRIENDS. He still calls them His FRIENDS
because He loves them so much. . Wow! How powerful is that? No
matter what we have ever done to Jesus, His love for us will never
change. He is always there to forgive and to be by our side. He
is our forever FRIEND.I want to be that kind of FRIEND. What a
FRIEND we truly have in Jesus.
