The Best Friend You Will Ever Have

“This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things 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 would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you. This I command you, that you love one another.”  John 15:12-17

Repetition in Scripture often means “this is important.” Jesus repeated a very important instruction in the above passage. It is more than a mere suggestion which should be considered. It is a commandment: Love one another.
   
At first, it seems unnecessary to have to tell someone to love another person, especially when the two are on common ground. But we tend to define differences of opinion and hold others at arm’s length.

Jesus knew that men would ask for His definition of love, so He gave it by saying that the one who shows real love is the one who will “lay down his life for his friends.” And that is what we find Jesus doing.

There is a condition on Jesus’ friendship. What qualifies us as friends? Jesus says, “...if you do what I command you” (John 15:14). His command? “Love one another, just as I have loved you” (John 15:12). Where do you stand in your friendship with Jesus?

The difficulty is not so great to die for a friend
as to find a friend worth dying for.