Our Friend

My Theophostic class was Saturday, and when it was time to practice TPM, I was the one who got to receive ministry.  I was dealing with fear of rejection, and I was remembering my elementary school days when I was very quiet and shy and not popular.  I was quite intimidated by one popular girl; she was never mean to me, but I didn't have her social skills and considered myself inferior to her. I was always afraid I'd be rejected if I said or did anything dumb. The Lord gave me a picture of me as a little girl, standing in front of the other girl.  Then Jesus put his arm around me.  It made me realize that His friendship is unconditional; He's my friend even if I say or do dumb things.  This was very powerful!
After the ministry session ended, I mentioned a verse in John 15 where Jesus said that we are His friends if we do what He commands.  This verse freaks me out because of my perfectionist flesh.  Pat, who teaches my Theophostic class, said that my interpretation of this verse might change in light of what the Lord just showed me.  After meditating on it, here's what I came up with:  It's very obvious that the Lord's friendship is unconditional.  The verse that helped me with this is Romans 5:10, which says, "when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son."  Jesus is a friend to every Christian, no matter what.  So when Jesus said we are His friends if we keep His commandments, He must have been saying that obedience is a way of us expressing love to Him; certainly it means that we'll experience our friendship with Him more if we obey His commands.  But it doesn't mean that He stops being our friend when we sin, hallelujah!  When we sin, He is for us (1 John 2:1)
I pray that we will all be blessed by the Lord's unconditional friendship.