This was not a general declaration..HE WAS ADDRESSING HIS DISCIPLES He did not call YOU His friend..
Ah, so then he didn't intend for them to tell others about his work on Earth? (You know, the thing He said made them his friends.) Wow, so much for the Great Commission.
He's not a personal savior? Guess the group-salvation stuff of liberation theology must be right after all.
Do you even think about the consequence of your theological positions?
And besides that; if things are as you say and I have no free will, then what does it matter that I do or don't? If God is not my friend, then why shouldn't I tremble in terror at the Great Despot? If God is as you paint, giving me no free will and not being my friend; then why should I believe that He intends any good thing for me?
But hey, maybe you're right. Maybe God created me to hate. Maybe God made me simply so he could laugh at my pathetic attempts at life.
After all, your God, being perfectly free creates man in his own image, but without any freedom and with an inherent sin-nature.
No, you must be right and the apostles wrong; surely God did not send his son to die for my sin because He loved me. Surely Jesus never thought of me at all, despite being God himself, and despite him forming me in the womb.