4. Jesus chose friends He could share His heart with.
John 15:15 teaches us that Jesus shared His heart with His friends who understood Him. In Matthew 13:11 Jesus told His friends, “To you it has been given to understand the secrets of the kingdom of heaven but to them (non-friends) it has not been given.” If someone cannot understand your heart or believe in your vision it will be difficult for them to be a true kingdom friend.
5. Jesus proactively chose His friends.
John 15:16 teaches us (in the context of His choosing friends) that people did not choose Him but vice versa. Although this passage is also referring to salvation, it also shows that His methodology for choosing friends was proactive (not reactive) based on their calling to build with Him. Consequently, we should determine in our hearts who we should pursue in a friendship. Don’t merely pick those who desire to be close to you; proactively choose people based on a leading of the Lord. Not everyone who wanted to be close to Jesus was given that access; out of the multitudes, He only had an inner circle of three, then 12 and then 70.
The others only had access to Him during brief moments of their lives. If you are going to be fruitful in the kingdom, you cannot spend a lot of time with every person you meet. For example, I do not feel guilty for not answering every Facebook message or email sent to me; if I did I would either suffer burnout, leave important work undone, or lose my primary focus and miss my calling.
6. Jesus’ friends received His hard sayings.
In John 6:66-68 many of His disciples left Him because they could not receive the meat of the word! His true friends were thus separated from those who were merely temporary acquaintances. Your true friends will stand by you even when God gives you a hard saying and/or call to do something that is not understood by many other people.
7. Jesus’ friends were those who stood by Him during His trials.
Luke 22:28-29 shows that His closest friends were those who stuck it out with Him during His earthly trials. God will often allow you to go through a severe personal or ministerial trial to test those around you to demonstrate who your real friends are. You can only build with those who are faithful to you during difficult times and not only when things are going well.
