John 15:13 “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”
Friendship can be a tricky business, it’s not like marriage where you’ve made a commitment to each other and declared your love for each other both publicly and privately. No, friendship can be far more complicated and difficult than any other relationship. In fact, I’ve often wondered why Jesus used friends and not family or spouse. Perhaps it’s because the loyalty and love of a friend is a constant unknown, never declared, always presumed, always uncertain.
I know a few people (myself included) who have (or have had) a friend that they were totally committed too. If this friend was in trouble everything was dropped or put on hold while their needs were met; extra care was taken when buying them birthday gifts, but if they remembered your birthday you could see they’d just grabbed something and hoped it would be ‘okay’. You’d make dinner arrangements and they’d casually cancel at the last minute because they were tired but if this friend called and said “lets meet for coffee”, after getting over the shock (because they were never the one to initiate anything) all other arrangements were quickly cancelled – even the urgent one that you’ve waited a month for!
Not all friendships are like this, thank goodness! Most of them are more evenly balanced with a mutual amount of give and take and yet, these friendships are the ones that we never forget, the people that we pour our hearts into, that we want to care for, nurture, encourage, support, love. The problem with these friendships is that very often a time comes when we realize that we are putting ninety percent into the friendship, the other person is benefitting tremendously from all our attention and so, to keep us at their side, they will do their ‘share’, they will put in their ten percent just to keep us satisfied. When the ‘ninety-percenter’ suddenly realizes what is going on, they very often confront their friend angrily and invariably walk away from the friendship feeling hurt, used and confused.
I have to ask myself ‘why?’ Why walk away from something that you have built up? Except for in a marriage, nowhere in a relationship with another person, is it demanded that what you feel for someone is what they should feel in return. If you have declared your affection for that person, have they ever reciprocated? Did you inform your friend that you had certain expectations of them in return for the things that you did for them? Under most circumstances people will respond in kind, but if they don’t after the first few occasions, you can be sure that they probably never will. I am fully aware that in my own particular case hell would freeze over before my friend even made it into the ten percent bracket, but I am prepared to live with that as it is my choice and until such time as I feel God saying ‘enough’ then that person will continue to have my full commitment.
I also cannot help feeling that many ‘Christians’ have a relationship with Jesus that is very much like the “ten percenter’s”. They like to keep Him around for when they need Him in an emergency, but otherwise they never talk to Him, never visit Him at His house, never do anything that He needs done, but know that they don’t have to do anything at all, because He is the truest of all friends, because He laid down His life for us! The other wonderful thing about Jesus is that, although so many Christians are ten percenter’s, He is always a one hundred percenter! He will never walk away from us no matter how badly we treat Him, his love remains steadfast and true. He never lets go no matter what we are going through or how we behave.
John 15v17 “ This is my command: Love each other.” 
