8 May 2015 - the good kind of friend zone

Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! Let thy glory be over all the earth!

Jesus, you call us friends! How can this be? It is too great to grasp. What does is mean?

You are my friends if you do what I command you.

Jesus, your command tells us how to be your friends. It tells us not turn our backs on you or betray you. It tells us how to love and not to hurt the people about whom you care so much. Your command is, "love one another as I love you." Your command is "to lay down one's life for one's friends." You receive this command to lay your life down from your Father (cf. Joh. 10:18). You reveal that command to us, making known everything you have heard from him. You reveal to us the deepest meaning of existence. It is a meaning that touches the core of who you are, LORD. It is the deepest truth of you relationship with the Father and the Spirit. It is the life-giving love of the Trinity. We are no longer slaves who do not know what you are doing. We are now friends and brothers, sharing in everything you have.

Just as you choose the Gentiles in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia you choose us as well. Your Holy Spirit reveals that we are chosen and accepted as your friends. We need not remain mere slaves any longer. He invites us to ever deeper friendship with you. He invites us to move from being slaves, working to earn our place in the household, to friends who know and share your mission.

It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you
and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain,
so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you.

The Father gives us whatever we ask because we join you in the mission of spreading your love to the world. This love is the only fruit that lasts. LORD, we are tired of working so hard on so much only to see it flourish briefly only to fail. We are wearied with efforts that are ultimately doomed. But you appoint us to bear fruit that will remain. Your Holy Spirit empowers us to bear this fruit. By our friendship with you we learn how to bear it. The Father will do whatever it takes, Jesus, to let this fruit come forth, as long as we ask in your name, as friends and not as slaves.

I will give thanks to you among the peoples, O LORD,
I will chant your praise among the nations.
For your mercy towers to the heavens,
and your faithfulness to the skies.
Be exalted above the heavens, O God;
above all the earth be your glory!