The word friend seems to mindlessly categorize the multitudes of people in our lives today. We have friends on facebook, at work and at school. These friends sometimes aren’t even people that we have met; we’re simply their friend because we sat near them at Starbucks once.
We get this elusive term from the Germanic word freond which means ‘to love’. We sometimes also translate phileo (a Greek term meaning love) into our friend.
How many people on your “friend lists” could you say that you love? I know you think you love them all, but look at what Jesus says about loving our friends, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay his life down for his friends” (John 15.13) fortunately for us, this was displayed perfectly through Christ’s death and not our own. But we cannot let the idea of a greater love simply end with Christ‘s death.
Building Relationships
So what do we do for and with those that we love? We hang out, go to the movies, visit them at the hospital, listen to them, and even cry with them. Of my 425 friends on facebook, I can only think about 20 or so of them that have actually experienced those things with me; I am only a true friend to less than 5% of the people on that list! That’s a far cry from considering them a friend in the context that Christ laid forth for us.
How are you doing treating your virtual friends, as real friends? What steps can you take to build a deeper and more Christ like friendship with them?
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