27--Relationships That Glorify God
Friendships are the stuff of life! A true friend will always stand by you even if you irritate them--which I hope you don't. But our world has set up rules for choosing friends that are not good or right. According to the world, we should choose friends who always tell us what we want to hear, who always praise us and take our side even when we are wrong, who never stand up to us or irritate us, who think like we do, and who make us feel good. That gives you a lot of control. It makes you feel important to have friends like that. You set the standard for them. And if they don't live up to your standards, you simply discard them like a dirty dishrag.
How do we know who should be our friends? Believe it or not, the Bible gives us a lot of advice about that. The book of Proverbs tells us a lot about who we should avoid--people who try to entice us to sin, and people who are angry and abusive. And the New Testament gives us the same kind of advice in the letters to Titus and II Timothy. Titus says, "As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned." II Timothy says, "For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people."
James tells us to avoid friendship with the world. It doesn't mean you can't be kind to people who are not Christians, but we can't get past a very superficial level with them because we have nothing in common.
Now that we know what to avoid, we can start looking at what to look for in a friend. Look for people who are willing to tell you the truth even if it is not something you want to hear. Look for people who are peacemakers--the ones who will stick around and be forgiving. Look for people who are kind and patient and who always want to include others. If you choose friends who are critical and judgmental and who like to be exclusive, sooner or later they will exclude you. And they will always be trying to make you choose between them and someone else. Avoid that.
These are the people who should be in your "inner circle" but it should not stop there. You should actively look for people who do not have friends. You should always be looking to include more people and expanding your larger circle of friends. Find people who are lonely or sad. Make friends with people from all age groups. Don't settle for your own peer group--there is much to be learned from people who are your grandparents' age and from little children. Make friends with people who are really different from you in other ways. Learn about their culture. Make friends with people who disagree with you about politics. It's OK to disagree with people. Jesus did not agree with his disciples about all that. But he loved them anyway. You can do it too.
Three simple rules will help guide you in your choices for friends:
1. Always, always, always be kind to everybody--even your enemies. There is never any excuse for cruelty or unkind treatment.Treat others the way you want them to treat you.
2. Be discerning about your "inner circle" of friends--the ones you trust for good advice and the ones who share your beliefs and worldview.
3. Always be expanding your larger circle of friends and include people of all ages and all walks of life.
If you follow these guidelines, you will glorify God in your relationships and that is always the goal--to please Him above yourself.
Best Friends Forever
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