DAILY DEVOTIONAL – August 18, 2020
“What Did You Call Me?!”
Prayer: Almighty God and Father, You reign on High. You are above all things and all people and all powers. There is none mighty like You, none before You and none who come after You. You spoke and the universe came into being. You speak and Your creation listens. When we consider just how small and insignificant we are, we are left in awe and amazement that You would call us friend, and that You made us Your friend by dying on the cross, while still yet we didn’t know You. Jesus, You alone receive our thanks and praise. You alone are worthy. Amen.
Scripture: John 15:12-17
12 This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. 13 There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me. 16 You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name. 17 This is my command: Love each other.
Devotion – “What Did You Call Me?!”
By default, we measure true friendship by how much we get out of the relationship. Case in point: if I were to ask you, “Who are your true, best friends in life? How do you know they are your true friends?” Invariably, a significant part of that measurement would be how that person helped you or made you feel or how they provided what you needed in any number of ways; essentially, our default litmus test for measuring true friendship is to count or measure the benefits we receive.
I’m not sure how many of us would count someone as a true friend who has caused us nothing but grief or stress or pain – and it’s that truth about ourselves and our own sinful nature that makes what Jesus says in our passage from John so absolutely incredible. Jesus says, “You are my friends.” What do we have, or what have we ever had to offer the Living God in the flesh? What could we ever give to Jesus that would be worth even a minute fraction of what God in Christ has given us? The answer is simple; nothing. That’s the amazing part of God’s amazing grace and what makes the Good News of Jesus good. As Christ also said in our text, “You did not choose me. I chose you.” Christ doesn’t call us friend because we proved to be true friends of His before He willingly carried your cross and my cross the top of the hill called Golgotha where He would be crucified for our sins against God and against one another. God and Christ call us friend only because God is love, and Christ is love, and for no other reason than that God chose out of that amazing love and grace to forgive our sins by casting them on Himself. Jesus said in verse 13 of our text, “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Christ’s very next words were “you are my friends.”
How do you ever say thank you? How can you ever match the friendship of God given to us in Christ? The truth is friends, we can’t. It’s grace. That’s what it’s all about; God’s pure grace that loves us and forgives us knowing we could never fully repay Him. But that doesn’t mean we can’t express our love and thankfulness to God for His gracious gift. In our text for today, Christ tells us just how we can express that love and thankfulness – by obeying our Lord and Master Jesus who died in our place, by loving one another, by loving those in our life who could never love us back, to be a true friend…and who is our friend? Anyone in need.
Being a friend to someone, being there for someone in their time of need doesn’t always mean you have to give them something physical like money or loan them your car. Even in the most severe of circumstances, even in the midst of the biggest problems, more times than not what a person really needs is small. A hug, a word of reassurance, an ear that will truly listen, a shoulder they can lean on when the load becomes too much to bear, and many times my friends, being a friend to someone in need means just being there.
God calls us friend, and unlike you and I, God always knows what to do and always knows what to say…He even put it in print for us to be able to read anytime we want and need. The God who walked to Calvary’s Hill and laid down His life for you and me calls us friend. We call Him Lord and God and Master and Savior and Father. But amazingly, He calls us friend, and calls us to love and be a friend to others as He has been to us. Who is our friend? Anyone in need. That means everyone is your friend.
God bless you, my friends, and remember that God has forgiven yesterday, is with you today and has already taken care of tomorrow. Amen.
