If we met for the first time, I would probably reach out to chake your hand saying, Hello, I am Robert Carter. How are you?
I would like you to meet my friend. Permit me to introduce you. His name is Jesus.

He is a very real person you know, with feelings and emotions just like you, so understands you very well. After all, He lived with us for thirty or so years, walking the planet, getting just as tired, hungry and thirsty as you do, enjoying life to the full with His friends.

He had many friends you know. Lazarus was one. We know about Lazarus in John chapter eleven.
He also had twelve other friends, one of whom betrayed him, but Jesus knew he would do that the day they first met.

I know these things about Him because the bible tells me about His life. Perhaps you do not enjoy the intimacy of relationship I have with Him, so I'd like to share a few things I know with you so that you can get to know Him too.

I know that He wants to have friends, because he said so.In John chapter fifteen, He revealed how much He and the Father desire intimacy of relationship with us. He used a grape vine as an example.
I am the Real Vine and my Father is the Farmer. He cuts off every branch of me that doesn't bear grapes. And every branch that is grape-bearing he prunes back so it will bear even more. You are already pruned back by the message I have spoken. Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you. In the same way that a branch can't bear grapes by itself but only by being joined to the vine, you can't bear fruit unless you are joined with me. I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you're joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant. Separated, you can't produce a thing. Anyone who separates from me is deadwood, gathered up and thrown on the bonfire. But if you make yourselves at home with me and my words are at home in you, you can be sure that whatever you ask will be listened to and acted upon. This is how my Father shows who he is—when you produce grapes, when you mature as my disciples. John 15:1-8.

He spoke about joy. Did you know that God has a sense of humour? He wants to share that with us also. Listen to this-
I've told you these things for a purpose: that my joy might be your joy, and your joy wholly mature. John 15:11.That was just after He told us how much the Father loved Him."I've loved you the way my Father has loved me. Make yourselves at home in my love. If you keep my commands, you'll remain intimately at home in my love. That's what I've done—kept my Father's commands and made myself at home in his love. John 15:9-10.

He added-
I've told you these things for a purpose: that my joy might be your joy, and your joy wholly mature. This is my command: Love one another the way I loved you. This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends. You are my friends when you do the things I command you. I'm no longer calling you servants because servants don't understand what their master is thinking and planning. No, I've named you friends because I've let you in on everything I've heard from the Father. You didn't choose me, remember; I chose you, and put you in the world to bear fruit, fruit that won't spoil. As fruit bearers, whatever you ask the Father in relation to me, he gives you. But remember the root command: Love one another. John 15:11-17.

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The verses of the bible that I shared with you reveal that Jesus Christ put His life on the line for this relationship... for you.
Verse fifteen tells us that He does not want a servant/master relationship, although He is truly master of all things, but a relationship in which He can take you into His confidence and share His heart with you in the ways that only the best of friends can do. Dare I say that it is like the closeness or intimacy of relationship that a man has with his wife. My wife Marjorie and I are very close. We are as one. We think alike. We enjoy the same things. We like the same food and often times start doing the same thing at the same time without either of us saying a word. For example, I may be in my office and go the the kitchen to make a coffee at the same time she does and we never said a thing to each other. This kind of intimacy of relationship is definitely as real with the Lord as it is with each other and that  is what He wants with you also.

In John chapter seventeen, Jesus prayed for you and for me. It was not the Lord's Prayer that you might have heard about. That was he example of how to pray that He gave His disciples when they asked Him to teach them. In John 17, He was praying for you, shortly before He was arrested and then went to the cross for you.