While I don't believe Jesus's saying in the Gospel of John, "No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends." is demanding that we all die for our friends, it does raise an interesting series of questions. First, who are our friends? Sometimes I think the word "friend" gets a bit overused in the American context. I have traveled a fair bit to other countries, and what has struck me is how most of them are very selective about who they call friend. They use other words - colleague. Someone I know. Classmate. But sometimes in American culture we count everyone and anyone we know the name of as a friend, instead of those who truly know us.
Second, would we count the folks we go to church with as friends? In the context of this verse, as we look around the church, who would we be willing to sacrifice for? Who would we show love in action to? Who would we literally lay down our lives for? Because if the church can't be a place where we love as Jesus loved then we may be missing the point. It's not just about coming to a place where we can sit in physical proximity to one another, its about a place where we can share our hearts and lives with one another, and that takes a lot more intentionality.
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