Love Your Neighbour

"Greater gift has no man than this: to lay down his life for his friends."

In this age of social networking and cyber bullying, it's not so easy to know who our friends are. But one thing is sure: we can know if we are a friend to others.

What is friendship? Is a friend someone to have a good laugh with, share an adventure with, or a secret? Is a friend someone who knows us inside and out and loves us anyway? Does it take time to make a good friend or can that happen overnight?

Friends are valuable to us, and hopefully we seldom take them for granted the way we do our family. While family members know us at our worst, we might not let friends see that side of us, at least not right away. We might hide our tears or our fears from friends, but then when 'crunch time' comes, how do we really know we can depend on them?

Or turning it around, how do we know we can be depended upon?

We who live in the Western World at least, live in culture that is pretty 'me' oriented. So if I turn the question on its head and say, 'how do I know I can be depended upon' it has a different flavor in my mouth. And it helps me to work out if I'm 'friend material' or not. I hope I am. I want to be.

As I look inside myself, I see a person who is loyal but also critical. Loyalty is something I admire and appreciate in my friends. But I don't want to be criticized and so I guess I should let that aspect of me 'die'.

What do you see inside yourself? What attributes contribute to your friendships? Which ones may get in the way? A man named Jesus literally died for all of us; in life and throughout literature, there are stories where one person sacrifices his life for another. But today I'm just suggesting, what part of your personality could you let die for the sake of your friends?