- The King is Coming
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Devotion by Derwin Gray
This is my command: Love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants anymore, because a servant doesn’t know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me, but I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce fruit and that your fruit should remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give you. This is what I command you: Love one another. – John 15:12-17
As a rabbi, Jesus was inviting his disciples into a close relationship with him, beyond the usual teacher-student rapport. He does the same for us now—the king of all creation calls us his friends. What does it mean to you that Jesus has chosen you to be his friend?
Jesus is not a king who wants to be separated from his people, high and lofty. He’s a God who wants to be intimate with us. What does it say about God that he acted upon his desire to become friends with us?
Good friends can make all the difference in our lives. It may seem impossible, but Jesus came as Immanuel, God with us, because he wants to be our friend.
Have you ever noticed how long-time friends often act alike? It’s the same way with Jesus—the more time we spend with him, the more we start to resemble his character. How have you changed for the better since beginning your relationship with Jesus?
In what ways do you want to become more like him still?
We are often tempted to deny Jesus’s friendship because we do not feel worthy of him. But Jesus doesn’t expect us to fix ourselves before we befriend him. What’s holding you back from Jesus right now?
Sometimes even those who’ve been Christians a long time forget that Jesus called all sorts of people his friends. And he wants us to welcome the outcasts and rejects too.
A king rarely befriends a commoner, but our high king of heaven has called us his friends. Jesus is the friend who heals us, who doesn’t abandon us, who stays with us, and who accepts us as we are. At the same time, he’s growing us into becoming more like him.