What a Friend

John 15: 12-14

Jesus said to his disciples, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.  No one has greater love than this to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.”

Those words, I first heard from the pulpit, exploded in my mind as his declaration brought my Christian experience full circle from Old to New Testament. Jesus is telling me that he was there too on Mt. Sinai.  Of course, He fully knows the ten commandments, and now he is adding his!  Wow!

My childhood experience in worship always included lessons from the Old and New Testaments.  Let alone one of my earliest Sunday School classes was based on the theme of love thy neighbor as thy self.  That was difficult to absorb as a child.  However, as I matured, my interpretation of that was to show kindness to my classmates, and I also found that they honored me with reflections of the same.  Also as Jesus said, “As you sow, so shall you reap.”

“What a friend we have in Jesus,” another refrain from my formative years.  “You are my friends if you do what I command you.”  To me another “wow!” moment.

Love, of course, is a recurring biblical theme, as in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world….”  How powerful is that?

Yet in this passage, Jesus alludes to what is to come at Calvary.  As mere humans, did the disciples really understand?  They experienced so much with Jesus, his miracles, his teachings, his mastery of the Old Testament.  Ultimately all the dots were connected in the upper room, and they were truly his friends.

Jesus wants us to be his friends too!

God in Heaven, may Jesus’ words motivate us to love one another as he loves us!  Let our words and our actions be our own testament as followers of Christ. Amen.

This devotion was written and read by Sam Barto.

Grace for All is a daily devotional podcast produced by the members of the congregation of First United Methodist Church in Maryville, Tennessee. With these devotionals, we want to remind listeners on a daily basis of the love and grace that God extends to all human beings, no matter their location, status, or condition in life.

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