Jesus’ Way of Friendship
Nov 13th, 2008 by ljkim
[I was going to do this one as a video blog, but I need a shave and my hair is sticking sideways so I'll write you a transcript instead.]
There’s a part where Jesus says “Love one another as I have loved you” and “by this the world will know that you are my disciples…that you love one another as I have loved you!” The point is that Jesus’ love is a little different from the way we usually do friendships. The way we usually do friendship is we find people who are fun or make us feel good or are “easy to talk to” or good for us in some way. “Friends” are usually people we can lean on or are useful to us on an emotional level…but Jesus has a different concept of friendship.
The way God loves people in Scripture is not based on God’s needs, but on something else. Just the way civilizations have thought of Gold and Silver as precious, even though it had no practical value (until recently)… Since the beginning of civilization people valued gold, thought it was good and worthy…so as more people valued it, it did become “worth something” and can get you wealth… In a similar way God thinks of people as precious, even though we are no use to Him. And His love actually makes us worth something. I’m not being schmaltzy, follow the logic here and in the next paragraph: Jesus’ love for His disciples was based on His giving and getting almost nothing in return. The way you love like Jesus is by loving people for who they are, enjoying them even when they are no use to you, finding out about them, blessing them in whatever ways you can.
The paradox is, when you enjoy people for who they are, you do get something from them. They do wind up making you feel good. When you go to bless rather than to be blessed – the paradox is you do wind up being blessed! Because you value them, when they get blessed (by what you do) you get blessed. Are you with me here? Now if you have no idea of what I’m talking about – then this is something to think about. Maybe you need a new way to love. If you DO know what I mean, then you know a little bit of what it’s like to be like God. And you know that it’s a lot more fun than the other way.
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