Monday Message.

 Bond of Friendship is LOVE & PEACE.

Love and Peace is essential in a friendship, a friend is defined as acquaintance, or partner; someone with whom one spends time or keeps company with. Everything that you love, you will automatically be identified and one with it. As the say of the world says "show me your friends and I will tell you who you are". In this series A Friend of Mine, we will delve on the elements that keeps our friendship with Jesus Christ healthy. 

Just as a uniform keeps harmony and a bond of Love between companions, when a person wants to keep a healthy relationship with the church, school or other organizations they must wear uniform and union. Uniform often proves who you serve and where you belong (John 13:35). Nevertheless, the love we have for our friend Jesus Christ and for one another is our uniform that proves to the world that we are Christians. Love & Peace they are important in friendship, because it strengthen the bond and fidelity of the friendship. Because you can't be transparent to your enemies but to the one you love and at peace with you become vulnerable and accessible. A friend we love and at peace with becomes our weakness and our strength at the same time, in other words, friends must give us courage and confidence to face the world but when we are with them we are at peace and we become open, tender and liable.

Any relationship without friendship is dictatorship. Its either one controls the other. Jesus Christ with His followers, He went from the relationship of a King and subjects, Lord and servants, Teacher and disciples to that of a friend and a friend, because we are now equal with Him. All that Jesus Christ did, it was because of the love He had for us . Friends cover-up for each other, as our destiny as human beings was hell and condemnation but Jesus Christ covered us up, in order for us to obtain Eternal Life through Him, as He layed His life down for us (John 15:3).

Jesus Christ made things simple for us, instead of keeping 613 Judaism law including the Ten Commandments, He summed us everything to one commandment which is love, because love does no wrong to others, so love fulfills the requirements of God’s Law (Rom13:10). Our friendship with Christ is not the matter of do's and don't but a matter of love.

We can never rule out the fact that Jesus Christ is our King, and there is nothing difficult as being the friend of a King. Nevertheless we need to pursue Love in order to be a King's friend. As we know that God is love (1John 4:8). We need to be born again by God in order to be the friend of a King. The Love that God gives its Agape, it is the highest kind of love, it is unconditional love. God loved us regardless of our past, present and future sins. All that God desired was a friendship. When we are born again we recived the Love of God that purifies our hearts, changes our character and our language so that we can win the friendship of the King. The Love we have with Jesus Christ is the mixture of Agape and Phileo kind of love this love keeps Christianity to be simply a matter of companionship and being co-workers with Jesus Christ. 

[Whoever loves a pure heart and gracious speech will have the king as a friend.] 

(Prov 22:11)

GraceUponGrace.