John 15:12-27 KJV 12 This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. 13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. 14 Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. 15 Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you. 16 Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you. 17 These things I command you, that ye love one another. 18 If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. 19 If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. 20 Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. 21 But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not him that sent me. 22 If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin. 23 He that hateth me hateth my Father also. 24 If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father. 25 But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause. 26 But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me: 27 And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning.

To have a friend is to have someone you trust or believe in your ability to overcome. A friend is someone that sees your potential and encourages you. A friend is a person that accepts you for who you are even in times of failure. A friend is someone that will be there through good and bad times. Who were Jesus friend when he walked the earth, the answer can be found in the continue scripture reading below. He is a friend of publicans and sinners. In Jesus' ministry he called to publican/taxcollector and also the sinner. Jesus ministry speaks of three tax collectors by name. One being Matthew, who was became a disciple and a follower of Jesus. The second being Zaccheus and he became a repented sinner, because Jesus was going to his house as a friend. The third taxcollector was Judas Iscariot, who was not really a friend but a betrayer and a keeper of Jesus' money bag. Jesus sat and talked and minister to the lost and dying world around him. He did not turn away sinners, but he did not live as a sinner. Jesus went to a wedding and helped in serving wine, by creating more wine. People were apparently already drunk. John the baptist came in purity in life style, and yet he would be rejected. Jesus made friends of sinners and many would be converted. Is living in the world different then living righteously for God. Many people believe in God and even Jesus but they do not do the will of God. Some people masquerade as sinners and other as living in purity of life style to appear holy before mankind but are not. There are wolves in many outfits There are Christians/believers that wear different outfits. Some like Christ sitting in the marketplace and in the fields of life making friends of sinners and taxcollectors. Many people are only friends with those they connect to as far as things they enjoy. Business people are often connected to all kinds of people. The business world is friends to all people, in order to get their money. Judas is a friend of Jesus only to be able to betray him. Jesus' disciples were his friend because they protected Jesus from the growing crowd, they spent time with him, and went about doing the will of Christ from town to town. Though Jesus needed no protection or provider because of who he was, he allowed the disciples to care for his needs, even allowing them to go get food or water as needed. Jesus did many miracles for people from all walks of life, but he also convert some to believe in not only Him but His Father who sent from heaven. Our concept of friendship is to love one another, to have compassion on others that does not always return love or give love. Sometimes we have to be friend to teach someone else to be a friend. Friendship is not about what you can gain from someone, but what you able to give. True friendship is not about being a taker, but a builder in a person's life. Many soup kitchens across our land provide a hot meal for the hungry. Yet they also provide other service besides food to enable them to step up and become a working citizen once more. They provide clothes, and some even shelter from life storms. These ingredients are needed to give hands up to the hungry. Yet it more then clothes or food but actions of love expressed in the giving. How you give makes a difference. If you only give to pacify a need and care nothing about the people you help there is no friendship. Yet if you learn to express love in your giving you gain friends of people in need that might even remember and aid in the giving. Friendship is not based on what you can give or receive monetarially, it based on caring for one another. The compassion and love from one another. Jesus tells his disciples if you love each other you are my disciples. What is love for your brethern. What is love for each other. Paul talks about being builders of the church. The master builder is God, the workmen are those that follow in the ways of Christ, to build to grow the family of God. To build a people of love, and encouragement of others. If a person teaches a child to take his time and to work at a project like a model car every day he will learns discipline in finishing a project. Yet the project itself might take weeks and not days. As he sees the project develop he realize what caring for his creation does, it changes over a course of time into the designer orignal plan or guide to the project. He is only the crafter, not the designer. As we help others to grow in faith in Christ we are not the designer of the vessel/car but we maybe bricklayers or crafter that helps in shaping God's knew project. See it takes love, to shape another life and not to be a destructor of a person's life. It takes compassion. The kind of compassion that makes a friend. It not our place to decide what that friend looks like, dress like, or even the shape of the person. That God's design not ours. Our place is only to be encourage of the work God starts in a person life. To be a builder, with one thing that is love and compassion in how we treat one another. God's family has to learn to love each other, even if they are not the providers, but seeing each other as equals and learning to treat each other has equals. A church gave a banquet and sold tickets. The poor family could not even buy a five dollar ticket for one meal, let alone four. The family is left out of the dinner. The person with only one good church outfit left out of the choir because he can not afford a new shirt to match everyone else. The mother with three screaming children is distraught because she can not control her children, and those qualified to help refuse to give any assistance, casting the woman out of the congregation, and yet the sermon today was only strength she would have for the week. There is a point when will that one church wake up and see the ministry of love that is needed in their own church. The one's with meal ticket, could they not share with those that do not. Can the nursey works aid the mother with three screaming children or another person stepping up and just giving a few minutes of time during the service to the woman in need. Does it matter if the entire choir matches, oh that why the church decided to buy robes. The need for uniformity is greater then allowing one to be different with that wonderful singing voice. To love each other is not to gossip about each other. Gossip might come because of other's gossiping, Monkey see and monkey does attitude. Never considering how it will effect anyone else. God's people loving, is allowing God first to change you and mold you into who He designed you to be, and then being that encourager to enable others to take those step God has design for them to take in the process of spiritual growth. That is the friendship and love Jesus desires for his disciples. Jesus disciples were a mix match group of people. Yet this mix match group of people would spread the gospel. These disciples would learn to love one another, to have compassion for each other. The point is God desires us to love one another but also to love Him. God wants us to be his friend, to show love toward God through our obedience to Him, by doing what He called us to do. We know we are followers of Christ if the world hates us, and yet we are called to be friend to the world, an encourager to the world though they be our enemy. We do not know who in the world might need a helping hand to know Christ. We do not know who might be in the world that wants to know God and have a relationship with Christ. We do not know who might get saved by the clutches of the devil. What we can rest assured is that God is able to change the lost and dying world. We can rest assured in God's saving grace. We can rest assured God still calls to the sinner, despite the fact they will reject God for a time. One day they will meet God for eternity to only be cast out of his presence because they never sought him or even believed. Our job is to be encourager not only to the church but to those outside the church in the things that are of God, that maybe they to will see the need of God. God gave people freedom to be who they were, only to laydown his Son's life for that freedom. The freedom to be in defiance of God is the freedom we give up to be sanctified and redeemed through Christ death and resurrection. It is the freedom to sin or/and to be enmities to God. God is declaring to the world not your way but my will be done on earth as is in heaven. God is declaring love of friends is great, but to be a friend of God one has to desire to do the will God, to live in accordance to His instruction. Dear Heavenly Father, you sent your Son to teach us to love you, but also to show us your way is best That we can not be a friend of the world, to do so we will lose our own life. That you desire us to love those who are God's people, but also to love those not of this world so they might see light and truth of your Son. Heavenly Father help us to love others by laying our life down by showing love. In Jesus precious name, Amen. Continual Scripture Study for Devotion:Matthew 11:13-20 KJV 13 For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John. 14 And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come. 15 He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. 16 But whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows, 17 And saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented. 18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a devil. 19 The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children. http://www.turtle30cshell.com