Mentoring Manna:  I call you friends

© 2003 Pastor Keith Hassell

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John 15:15 (NKJV) "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.”  Jesus made an important point.  Slaves do not have the privileges of friendship, including the intimate sharing of one heart to another.  A master would never allow a slave to become that personable with him lest the slave in his familiarity with the master, soon begin to despise the idea of serving him.  Masters always maintain an emotional distance to slaves.  However, this is not the case with friends.  Jesus told His disciples that He called them friends.  Everything that He heard from the Father He made known to them.  It is important to see that Jesus was a prime example of a mentor.  What the Father gave to Him was not for Him alone, but for those whom He was training.  Jesus did not hold back what He had been given.  If He failed to pass it on, it would not pass on to the next generation.  In mentoring the next generation, we must be diligent not to hoard what we have heard from the Father, but to share it with those God has given us to mentor. Just as the Father gives the worm to the bird to feed to his children, so He gives to us what is necessary to feed His children.  We must not hold back what is meant for them and simply feed ourselves.  Paul reflects this attitude when speaking to the elders at Ephesus in Acts 20:20:  "how I kept back nothing that was helpful, but proclaimed it to you, and taught you publicly and from house to house."  Although we are to impart everything into others, there is a time and a season when they will need certain things.  We withhold certain information until a child becomes a teenager because it is not needed until then.  However, our aim is that throughout the mentoring process, we will impart to them everything they need to be a success in life.  We encourage you to begin passing on to others (the next generation) what God is imparting into your life.

Application:  If you are a parent, then pass down what God has given you to your children.  Teach them at every opportunity---not in a classroom setting necessarily but with every situation in life.  Train them in the WAY they should go.  Demonstrate the "way" of the Lord through your own life example so it is clear.  Don't confuse them by saying one thing and doing another.  Be consistent day in and day out.  Don't blow the training through episodes of compromise and laziness.  Consistency is part of the training.  If you are a leader, then pass down to others those things that are being sowing into your life. Like one link in a chain, your role is important.  The next generation who walks with God is depending up on you to pass on to them what has been passed down to you.  It has been said that we are always one generation away from being an atheist nation. All that is needed to lose the next generation is for one link in the chain (this generation of disciples) to fail to pass on to the next generation of disciples what it has received from the Lord.  Let's not be the "weakest link."

Prayer:  “Heavenly Father, I want to thank You for calling me Your friend. I am thankful for Your desire to teach and mentor me so that I become more like You.  I determine now to be ready and willing to receive from You and mentors you have put into my life. Help me not to be a weak link in my generation. Help me to pass on to others those things that You have deposited in me.  I ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.”