What kind of friend does Jesus have in me?

What kind of friend are you?

Followers of Jesus Christ are called many things in the Scriptures: disciples, Christians, children of God.

Incredibly, Jesus himself simply calls us friends.

“I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business,” Jesus said. “Instead, I have called you friends” (John 15:15, NIV).

I’ve been thinking on this truth about friendship with Christ ever since I last heard the hymn, “What a friend we have in Jesus.”

Happily, I never have to wonder what kind of friend Jesus is to me. I just look to the cross of Calvary and the matter is settled. “Greater love has no one than this,” Jesus said, “that he lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).

Yet that old hymn gets me wondering: What kind of friend does Jesus have in me?

If real friendship is a two-way relationship, so, then, is being a Christian. It begins with God initiating friendship with sinners, bringing us into relationship with him. Genuine trust in Christ is not a one-time intellectual transaction, but a dynamic ongoing relationship that Jesus calls friendship.

In some ways, we can measure our friendship with Christ as we would any other healthy relationship.

So let’s do that.

Am I a good friend to Jesus if I never talk to him?

Prayerlessness is a sure sign our friendship with Christ has grown cold, if there is a relationship at all. Christianity begins with prayer – a sincere cry to God for forgiveness of sin on the basis of Christ’s death on the cross. That first conversation with our divine friend begins a lifetime of communion with God.

When Paul told the Thessalonians to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17), he urged them toward continuous fellowship with God as much as possible in the middle of daily living.

Prayer is to our spiritual life what breathing is to our physical life.

However simple, many Christians struggle to pray with the regularity and depth and faith that characterizes true relationship – friendship – with Jesus. I know I do.

Am I a good friend to Jesus if I never listen to him?

The Bible is not a textbook, though it is often treated as such. Nor is it merely a religious document among myriad others. No, the Bible is God’s very word, expressed in language we can understand, spoken directly and personally to us.

I’m guessing most of us know what it is to have a friend or acquaintance who never really listens to us. Yet we do that to God a lot of the time by ignoring his Word, or hearing it but not heeding it.

Jesus will not be our acquaintance only. He died to secure for us friendship with God; it’s our privilege to listen to him as our closest friend.

“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom” (Colossians 3:16, ESV).

Am I a good friend to Jesus if the whole relationship is based on my agenda?

It’s an arrogant presumption to think that Jesus Christ exists for us. Yes, he set aside the glory of heaven and was born a man for us. Yes, he died on the cross for us. And yes, he is risen, alive, coming again for us.

But it is we who exist for him. He saves us that we might follow him, imitate him and lead others to him.

Christian life is about Christ’s agenda, not ours.

We do well to look continually to the cross to be reminded of the kind of friend we have in Jesus. But let’s also consider how he might examine us.

What kind of friend are you?