We Are Friends of Jesus Christ

Although we are servants of God, God does not treat us as slaves. I believe that is also what lay behind Jesus Christ’s words when He told the parable of the unprofitable servant. He was telling us: God loves you, God has blessed you, God has adopted you as His children, but remember that, ultimately, you are unprofitable servants.

But we cannot lose sight of that great and radiant truth that we are children of God, that we are friends of Jesus Christ. The Lord does not treat us as slaves. We do not have to come before the Throne of Grace in fear, begging God for a blessing. Rather, the Bible invites us to enter confidently and come before God’s Throne of Grace, to come boldly, to expect great things from the Lord, and to remember that we are beloved and favored children. The Lord wants, as He did with the prodigal son, to give us everything in His House and seat us at His table so that we may enjoy all the blessings of the Kingdom of God.

And there is no passage that illustrates this for us better than John chapter 15, verses 14 and 15, where we see that the Lord tells us: “You are my friends.” In verse 15 He says: “I will no longer call you servants, because the servant”—in other words: I will no longer call you slaves—“because the servant does not know what his master is doing.”

In other words, let us look at this from the perspective of the Lord Jesus Christ’s parable. That slave whom He mentions in the parable certainly deserves nothing from his master: he is owed no explanations and needs no information from his employer. He is simply told what to do, and he carries out his master’s will. “I will no longer call you slaves because the slave does not know what his master is doing, but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything I heard from my Father.”

In other words, we see clearly here that the Lord’s preferred way of treating us is as friends, as a father treats his children, as children adopted by the Lord. And as servants of the Lord, we must maintain this dual identity. On the one hand, we see our lives as lives given over and surrendered to the Lord; on the other, we see ourselves as children, as chosen friends who have every right to expect great things from our Heavenly Father. This means that we must live confident lives, pleasant lives, lives that expect the abundance God has promised to all those who serve Him with humility and simplicity of heart.

As Christians, as children of God, we have every right to expect great blessings in our Christian walk, although somewhere in our subconscious we will always have the reminder that, ultimately, we are servants of the Lord and are at His disposal for whatever He wishes to do with us.

In our next meditation, we will conclude by thinking a little more about passages that further remind us of that positive identity we have in Christ Jesus. May the Lord bless you, and until our next meditation.