“I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy, Yes your joy will overflow! This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. 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. 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. This is my command: Love each other.
– John 15:9-17
I must admit that while I listen to the sermons on Sunday mornings, I very rarely feel like it is speaking to me, so as a result of this they normally don’t stick with me past that morning, however last Sunday’s sermon was totally different because for once the sermon stuck with me as it did hit a nerve with me on a topic that is near and dear to my heart, and that topic is friendship.
So what is friendship according to the sermon:
Friends see us at our best and even our worst
Friends are a gift to us
Friends encourage, support and challenge each other
Friends can also predict how we might respond in certain situations
A good friend is priceless
Friends have a mutual respect for one another (or in my case with a few of my friends- respect your elders *smiley face laughing*)
Friends have shared experiences
We can be friends with Jesus, and he wants us to be his friend too
As my pastor was going through the list of just what makes a friend a friend it got me thinking about all of my friends and how those attributes fit into our friendship, and it was at this moment in time that I felt like the spirit was moving in me and the first one of my friends that I thought of wasn’t one of friends who I have been friends with for over 20 years, but instead it was a friend of mine who I had been friends with for just about a year now. I smiled and started laughing to myself while I looked across the way in church to where she was sitting, and I felt at peace for I got a feeling that it was the spirit confirming to me our friendship, which to me was an amazing feeling, and after service she found me in Boll Hall and told me that she too first thought of me during that part of the sermon which not made me speechless, but it also farther confirmed my feeling that it was indeed the Holy Spirit that was confirming that fact, So cool for me to think about that as this moment showed that it was clearly God at work and that our friendship was truly meant to be.
I am a firm believer of the idea that God puts people in my life for a reason, and all of my friends are proof of that idea since I am so incredibly blessed to have every one of them in my life.
Til next time your fellow sister in Christ,
Bonnie
#YOLO
Psalms 18:2
Proverbs 27:17
#Blogitlikeitshot
