Month: August 2021

The Kitchen Table Devotions:  The Game of Life           Day 27

“Friendship”

“This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. ¹³ Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.                                  John 15:12-13

Friends find value in each other.  We can be so easily swept away of passion and privilege that we become blind to the things that actually enslave us to people and their prospects for us.  Friends find value in each other.  We all come into relationships with needs and wants but friends have a vision of value for the each other.  Everything must develop and grow but there should be fruit if something is growing and we should eventually see it or at least see it developing.  Friendship, like faith, isn’t merely words but is also a work that develops as we water it.

Jesus tells us to “love one another just as I have loved you.”  This kind of love cares deeply and gives greatly.  Jesus is sharing with His disciples what He will be showing His disciples in the coming hours.  A loving friendship finds value in each other and lives that way with each other. 

Jesus calls us friends and it’s not all because He is standing with us but because we are standing with Him.  Friends find value in each other and that’s what they share substance and space with each other. 

Kitchen Table Devotions: The Game of Life      Day 26

“Relationships”

This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. ¹³ Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. John 15:12-13

This life is about relationships.  The relationships we develop determine the person we become.   It’s been said that we are the culmination of the five closest people around us.  The relationships we embrace can make us or break us. 

Jesus, on the night before He was crucified, sat down and talked to His disciple about friendships.  Within 24 hours all of His friends would betray and abandon Him, but He would continue to be their friend.  That’s how love works within a relationship.  Love doesn’t give up, walk away, or drop off the map just because the other person did.  Love won’t let a friend do that sort of thing.  Jesus told His disciples that love was the key to a relationship and them He showed then how a relationship works.  After the cross and the resurrection, Jesus walked in on those who had walked out and said,  “Hi guys!  Here I am”.   

Friends have a “value” for each other.  Jesus said that and Jesus showed that to His disciples.  We become friends, not just faces, when we love rather than loathe.  One of the greatest needs in the church, not just the world, is friendship and it’s missing because we don’t value one another enough to be there with them, to be there for them, and to be there around them, just because we love them.  I’ve found that people who can love others aren’t usually at a loss for others to love.  Just a thought!