As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and remain in his love. "I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father. It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you. This I command you: love one another. (Jn 15:9-17)
Jesus is exactly like the father. He is so because he loves as the father loves him and he keeps the commandments of the father. Jesus wants his disciples to be so. He wants them to love as Jesus has loved and keep his commandments. Jesus has seen the father and so he follows him and the disciples have seen Jesus and hence they should follow him and do as he has done.
Jesus has called them friends and not servants. Servants are like slaves. They only follow the order given to them and they do whatever is told to them. They will not know the reasons for doing what they are doing. Jesus has taken his disciples to be his friends. Friends are they those who know everything of their friends. There are no secrets among friends. There only revelations. Jesus has revealed everything of the father.
Disciples are chosen by Jesus and they are chosen to be friends and hence they receive all the revelations. They come to know the father as Jesus himself knows the father. So whenever they love and follow the commandments of Jesus they are like Jesus and in turn they will be like the father. To be a disciple of Jesus is to know the father and be like the father.
