Do you want Jesus to call and know you as His Friend?
Immature believers simply want to make it to Heaven and be received by Jesus Who will say “thou good and faithful servant, enter into My rest.” Do you want to have a greater and more intimate relationship with Him?
Jesus spoke in John chapter 15:
9 “I Love each of you with the same Love that the Father Loves me. You must continually let My Love nourish your hearts.
10 If you keep My commands, you will live in My Love, just as I have kept My Father’s commands, for I continually live nourished and empowered by HIS Love.
Do you want to live in the same fulfillment as Jesus?
11 My purpose for telling you these things is so that the joy that I experience will fill your hearts with overflowing gladness!
Do you want that same joy?
12 “So this is My command: Love each other deeply, as much as I have Loved you.
13 For the greatest Love of all is a Love that sacrifices all. And this great Love is demonstrated when a person sacrifices his life for his friends.
14 “You show that you are my intimate friends when you obey all that I command you.
Intimate friends don’t selectively choose which commandments they are willing to obey. They obey ALL of His commandments and seek to be effective for The Kingdom as they continue toward full maturity.
15 I have never called you ‘servants,’ because a master doesn’t confide in his servants, and servants don’t always understand what the master is doing. But I call you My most intimate and cherished friends, for I reveal to you everything that I’ve heard from My Father.
Jesus wasn’t reluctant to share FATHER’S Heart with them or us. They recorded all that The Holy Spirit had instructed so that there would be a record of Truth for us to benefit from as we move toward mature and intimate friendship with Our Lord Jesus Christ.
16 You didn’t choose Me, but I’ve chosen and commissioned you to go into the world to bear fruit. And your fruit will last, because whatever you ask of My Father, for my sake, He will give it to you!
Do you want to bear lasting fruit? I do!
17 So this is My parting command: Love one another deeply!”
Our motivation should originate with Our Love for Jesus and those with whom we come in contact. Where is my mission field? It is wherever I am at. We should be looking for opportunities to witness and minister to the needs of others.
When you are His intimate friend, it doesn’t mean that you no longer serve mankind.
Paul wrote by The Holy Spirit in Galatians chapter 4:
1 Let me illustrate: As long as an heir is a minor, he’s not really much different than a servant, although he’s the master over all of them.
2 For until the time appointed by The Father, the child is under the domestic supervision of the guardians of the estate.
3 So it is with us. When we were juveniles we were enslaved under the hostile spirits of the world.
4 But when the time of fulfillment had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law.
5 Yet all of this was so that he would redeem and set free those held hostage to the law so that we would receive our freedom and a full legal adoption as His children. 6 And so that we would know that we are His True children, God released the Spirit of Sonship into our hearts—moving us to cry out intimately, “My Father! My true Father!”
7 Now we’re no longer living like slaves under the law, but we enjoy being God’s very own Sons and Daughters! And because we’re His, we can access everything Our Father has—for we are heirs because of what God has done!
GOD is Our Father, Jesus is our Elder Brother and friend. Our intimacy with both is determined by our willingness to Love and embrace the commands He gave us to carry out.