Late one night recently, I began clicking through my Facebook friend list. I unfriended about a dozen people. If you saw this post on my page–congratulations–you made the cut. It wasn’t mean-spirited or anything, but if I (a) didn’t immediately recognize you, (b) didn’t talk to you much in high school or (c) don’t like your feed, I checked the box and cut you loose.

I also organized some of you into new categories (which you really should consider if you are an FB user). You can now have Acquaintances, Friends and Close Friends. This will help me enjoy my News Feed more, but it was more beneficial on a personal and introspective level. It made me think about what a friend really is and who my “friends” are. What does Jesus offer us on the topic of friendship?

This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.  John 15:12-15 NKJV

In this touching discourse during the Last Supper, Jesus talks to the apostles–His friends. True friendship according to Jesus involves love, sacrifice, respect and open communication. If these characteristics are missing from a relationship, it’s probably not really a friendship, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s good to have layer of people in our lives that we like and get along with but we are not close to. The word for this is an Acquaintance, and it’s from this pool that we generally develop great Friends.

So, Facebook has helped me better define the relationships in my life, and allowed me to identify some room for personal growth, too. Just don’t be offended if I refer to you as “my acquaintance.” Consider yourself a pre-friend, and I’ll do the same.