What is friendship? What does Jesus say that it is?

Dear little ones,

"Greater love has no man than this; that a man lay down his life for his friends."  John 15:13

I am perhaps not the person most qualified to talk about friendship.  My friends have always taken a back seat to my homelife.  That may seem good, but there were times when I neglected them for the sake of pursuing things that were not good.  I count you among my friends, as well as my children!  You are my BEST friends!!

Turning to Jesus, Who is all Truth and Wisdom, (and our BEST FRIEND!!) let's explore something about friendship.  In the verse above, I notice in every version of the Bible I could find online except one,  that Jesus does not say the words "give up", but instead says "lay down".  It is also interesting that the Greek word, (psuche), translated here in this New Testament verse as "life", is actually found more often in the N.T. translated as "soul".  Therefore, I believe that the word could be translated correctly to say "soul-life" (the will, mind, emotions), which differentiates it from "spirit-life" (what you get when you become born-again as your spirit comes alive to receive the Holy Spirit!), or just plain physical life. 

So, to sum up so far, we don't give up our soul-life, but lay it down.  To lay it down, hints at surrender and submission.  This is FAR HARDER than just giving up our physical life in a moment of sacrifice!!  This means I don't get my way!!  This means I need to "do unto my friend as I would like to have done unto me"!!  It means that when I am angry, tired, mistreated, inconvenienced, mocked, or deprived of dessert(!), I must still love my friend in this most difficult way.  It seems impossible even in daily life, as we all know from some of the "bad" days we've had!!

Here's another verse to consider:  "Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life (psuche) for us: and we ought to lay down our lives (psuche) for the brethren" (1 Jn. 3:16).

Uh-Oh.  There's that "ought to" I talked about in the last post!  I like to look at this Scripture this way:  Jesus not only died for us, but He also laid down His life for us.  He came as a servant, submitting even to death on the cross, but also humbled Himself to everyone!  He was the only truly unselfish Person Who ever lived!

So then, we "ought to" lay down what we want, and live unselfish servant-lives for our friends.  Only through the power of God is this possible at all.  His grace is there to draw on every moment, and is utterly sufficient to enable us to live His "laid-down life" here on earth.  Now comes the deepest truth:  Only your will has the power to stop the flow of His grace.....it is the sluice gate, whether open or shut.

love, Mama