Jesus as Friend
This article is part of a series here at More Than Sundays about the identities of Christ. If you struggle with understanding who Jesus is and why He is important, we pray that these articles will help you gain that understanding and come to know Christ more fully. Please enjoy!
Picture this: a time without smartphones! For some of us, that may be easy to remember, and for others, it may be a completely foreign idea. I can tell you that for me, it’s a distant memory (but not too distant though, right?). I remember coming home from school in junior high and going straight to my home phone and calling my best friend. Even though I just spent the previous eight hours with her in school, I wanted to share more stories and laughs with her. We would spend all evening on the phone together. Sometimes we would be talking for hours, or sometimes we would be sitting in silence with the occasional comment about some show we were “watching” together. We could spend all hours of the day talking to each other and never get tired of each other; we loved each other’s company and craved our connection. She was the one person I could invest all my time into and feel comforted in her presence, knowing that I could share my deepest, darkest secrets with her one minute and the next minute laugh about the most senseless things. Would it be silly enough to fathom this type of relationship when we think about our relationship with Jesus? Honestly, this is exactly how Jesus desires a relationship with us. He wants not just to be our friend but our best friend. He wants nothing more than to have a relationship with us – an intimate, sacrificial, loving relationship, just like one we would have with our closest friends.
When we communicate with people through our smartphones, there’s a level of intimacy that is missing. It’s not a direct, personal connection, but rather it is a way to stay distant and indirectly involved. Intimacy isn’t strictly specific to romantic intimacy; it’s the exclusive emotional bond that is created between people. We are more prone to associate intimacy with outward acts such as personal touch, expensive gifts and material items, or public displays of affection. When it comes to being intimate with our Lord, we must display our intimacy in other ways. Intentional intimacy with Him means we can be moved by His Word, sit in His presence in prayer, grow in our spiritual walk with Him, lament in our sorrows, and celebrate in our joys. We can spend hours on end having conversations on our smartphones whether it be texting, social media, or Facetime because we constantly crave that connection with other people, yet somehow, we have the tendency to be withdrawn in intimacy with our Creator. Isaiah 26:9 (NLT) says, “In the night I search for you; in the morning I earnestly seek you…” Day and night, let us earnestly seek and crave His attention, just like we do when we seek others around us. All these surface relationships are nothing compared to the connection we can have with Jesus. We should be more consumed with captivating His heart than with worrying about what is captivating our attention elsewhere.
In the friendships that are closest to us, there comes a selfless and empathetic love, an attitude of servitude, a desire to sacrifice ourselves for the betterment of others. Imagine sacrificing everything you are and everything you imagined to be – up to the point of laying down your life – for the sake of your friend. John 15:13 (NLT) says, “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Jesus did just that. He sacrificed His life for his friends. Now, don’t get me wrong here, I’m not claiming everyone should go and sacrifice their literal lives for their friends, but I’m calling us to sacrifice other things that may be important to us – like our time – in order to strengthen our friendship with Jesus! We are often so selfish with our time because we want to do what we want: sleep, eat, hobbies, etc. I know personally, I have fallen short of trading those things for my desire to be disciplined and obedient to His Word. There is something about sacrificing our time or convenience that does not even remotely seem like enough compared to the ultimate sacrifice Christ made for us, but it is. There is a quote that says, “you are who you surround yourself with.” So, if we spend more time with Jesus, we become more like Him. We learn His words and His character and learn to walk in our journey of life with Him by our side. He is there to be our friend, our confidant. He wants to show us His promises and the only way He can do that is for us to make more time in the day for Him.
Above all, there is love. The Greek word for the type of love found in friendships is philia. Philia is referred to as the affectionate love that runs deep in a true friendship. As Christians, we often find ourselves marked by a love for each other rooted in our mutual understanding of our shared identity and experience in Christ. This love is demonstrated in friendships because we choose who we want to display this love to. But with Jesus, He pursued us first. Therefore, all we can give in return is our own pursuit of Him, to love Him and to love others, as He commanded us. Mark 12:30-31 (ESV) says, “‘And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Though He chose us first, He is waiting to be loved by us in return. His love is displayed through His character. He loves us enough to provide us with words of truth, hold us accountable for our actions, provide us with endurance, and sanctify us. I can’t imagine having a friend who can love me better than that.
It’s easy to think of Jesus as this superior being (which He is), who is above all (which He is), who has almighty power (which He does) – but He’s also our friend (isn’t that great?). Sometimes He may be walking with us, or other times He may be carrying us, but all He wants is us. I hope to leave you with these final verses, to know how to think of Christ as our friend – John 15:12-17, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you, so that you will love one another.” Amen.
Resources:
The Pursuit of God by A.W Tozier
www.pursuegod.org – Discipleship Podcast – “What is Philia Love“