Today in John 15 Jesus talks about Him being the vine and we being the branches. This is a common known story to those of us that attend church on a fairly regular basis. There is a part of this chapter though that stood out to me, that in the past seems to have been glossed over or I just have not paid it too much attention. It starts off in John 15:12
12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.
13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends.
Of course we have all heard this one as well, but is what follows this command that really got my attention and made me think a little deeper about what all this means.
John 15:14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.
It seems that many start to think that doing the will of God is servitude and being a slave to a great and powerful god. This statement could not be farther from the truth that God loves us and desires to have a relationship with us. We are the only ones that are standing in the way of that relationship. All we have to do is what we have been asked to do, and that is to act in the same manner that Jesus Himself acted when He was among us. He has set us an example and as it says here has made known everything that He learned from the Father. We just have to step up and do it. Not because we feel like indentured servants that have an obligation to their master, but because we have an obligation to fulfill because of our love and friendship to the Lord.
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