Mark preached from John 15 this morning, verses which are both encouraging and mind-blowing!
“My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. This is my command: Love each other.” (John 15:12-17)
The fact that God not only chooses us but chooses to call us friends is amazing. Moreover, we demonstrate the fact that we are His friends by obeying His commands, the most important of which are to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and to love others as ourselves.
Proverbs 17:17 tells us that ‘a friend loves at all times’. Let us learn to be true friends by loving God and by loving other people.