‘What a Friend We Have in Jesus’…and what a great, old hymn.  I love to sing it and whistle it too–much to my poor wife’s consternation!  Reading this section of John 15, you can hear the love and the joy and the friendship in the marrow of Jesus’  words to His followers, to those in His day, and also to us today.  ‘You are my friends…’ (verse 14) and ‘…I have called you friends…'(verse 15)–read those verses and put your name in the place of the personal pronoun.  You…by name…are God’s friend,  the personal friend of Jesus, the Risen Lord!  Can you let that sink in a bit this Easter weekend?  Meditate upon it.  Say the words slowly.  Feel their meaning.  Stop…and ponder.  As I was reflecting of these verses, and especially on the thought of Jesus being my friend, another thought entered my mind.  Jesus said that ‘you are my friends’…not, I am your friend.  Now, certainly He is our friend, the best one of all, ever.  Of course He is.  But, I was thinking about another way of looking at that–how am I a friend of Jesus?  Oh, I love the idea that He loves me, that He’s my friend but what about how I can love Him… how I can be a friend of His?  What pleases Him?  Frankly, I’d rather have it the other way around, on the receiving end of all  those goodies from God!!  But that kind of friendship is way too one-sided, and we all know what that feels like to be with a so-called friend who can only talk about themselves, who shows no interest in us, who monopolizes conversations and can turn any comment to their own advantage in one-upmanship and self-centeredness waiting for you to take a breath so they can jump right in to tell their better story!   You know what I mean.  You have someone clearly in mind, and hopefully that’s not you or me–especially me!  But, am I that way with God? And how about you?  Always asking and begging in prayer, always talking about ourselves,  not sharing Him with others, not speaking up about an issue when we know how God feels about it, not praising or thanking or just sitting quietly with His Bible in our laps listening to Him speak to us.  That’s what a real friend would do…all those things and many more that you can think of as well.  Be a friend to Jesus…be a friend today. “What a Friend Jesus Has in (your name)”!