There is nothing so fraught with illusion as considering friendship with God. That is not to say it is impossible or unattainable, but so many of us delude ourselves into thinking a) God is my buddy, or b) I'm such a worm God could never be friends with me.
As with everything of utmost importance, the truth is both simple yet profound. If we do Jesus' commandments, we abide in His love, just as Jesus was faithful to the commandments of God and thus abode in His love, which is the central theme of the Trinity.
The commandments? To love each other as Christ loved us. Not just those who agree with us or are pretty to look at or are engaging conversationalists or have the money to do fun things with. It's not just our immediate family (though that can be a challenge in and of itself), but to love the truly unlovely, enough to die for the unlovely.
Tall order!
I've seen many fundamentalist diatribes against mainline denominations making fun of their platform of "love", holding to a hard line of uncompromising, merciless Biblical literalism. Where they are right is to deride "cheap" love that St. James in his epistle derides as dead faith. True love manifests in costly acts of mercy, and as a whole we fail at that miserably, even the fundamentalists in their lack of mercy, who have, like the church in Ephesus in Revelation, "lost their first love." How can God be friends with such cold, heartless people?
All is not lost!
Jesus in our Gospel today (St. John 15.9-17) gives us the instruction to love each other, but St. John in our Epistle for today (1 Jn. 5.1-6) reiterates it, but gives us a clue to its execution, belief in the one who delivers us by water and by blood. It is the waters of Baptism and the living water of the Holy Spirit, made possible by the blood of the Paschal Lamb, Jesus himself, that makes it possible for us to love. As we turn to Him and work the grace, the Holy Spirit in turn will strengthen us.
That, friends of God, is the power to conquer the world.
