Who you do life with is one of the most important decisions in your life. There are two kinds of friends… ones that help you on your path and ones that don't.
Proverbs 18:24 (NLT) says “there are “friends” who destroy each other, but a real friend sticks closer than a brother.”
I think the question "who is influencing whom?" is so important! If our "friends" refuse to keep our boundaries and respect our values we have to ask ourselves... "why are we hanging out with these people??" The truth is some of us are so needing, broken, or hurt that we will keep "friends" at any cost. The problem however is that we begin a pattern of hanging out with people who lack vision, boundaries, integrity, and self-respect and we begin to feel that we are not worthy of anything better.
God has designed us for relationships and He wants to do more than we can ask or imagine in our friendships... but it has to be His way... no ours. My prayer echos what we prayed in SURGE prayer last night... "God give each student godly friends who will help them on their path that you have given."
My favorite story about friends in the bible is found in Luke 5:17-20. This whole story happens because of a great decision to have great friends! John 15:13
Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.
Many students don't have great friends because they have never BEEN a great friend. In order to have great friends you need to sow great friendship. In order to be a great friend you need to have a great friendship with the one who created it.
That’s right! Your ability to experience and enjoy the fullness of friends and human relationships is directly linked to your relationship with God. When you open up your heart to the love of God by trusting in Jesus, His love fills you. It becomes the bedrock foundation to your friendships. Great friendships start with a great relationship with God.
I love this quote: “There is a world of difference between being friendly to someone because they’re useful to you and being someone’s friend.”
I believe a beautiful definition of friends is lived out in this story in Luke. All that the friends were interested in was getting their paralyzed friend close to Jesus. That's it! We are great friends when we are helping others get closer to Jesus. We have great friends when they are helping us get closer to Jesus. And that is so counter culture. Are you being a great friend?
If your ready for God to revolutionize your friendships, here's what you need to do...
Heart Check #1– How’s your relationship with God? Are you going full throttle for God? Is Jesus more important than what your friends think? Get this vertical relationship with Christ right, and your friendships will flourish.
Heart Check #2 – Who are you trusting in your relationships? You? Your friend? Or God? The decision to do things our way, to take our lives and relationships into our own hands, always includes the choice that you cannot really trust God to meet your needs.
Examine your current friendships. Think of the closest friends in your life these days and one at a time ask yourself, “Am I influencing them or are they influencing me?“ “Is my heart wrapped around this friend and they are influencing me in a way I don’t want to go or know I shouldn’t be going” “Is this friend moving me closer to God, or further away?” “Is this friend helping me grow spiritually and morally, or is this friendship producing bad habits and attitudes and are knocking me off course?”
Make a change. You might need not to hang out with someone anymore. You might need to spend more time with God. You may need to start influencing instead of being influenced. You may need to let God bring you a new friend. This might mean that you’re hanging by yourself for a while. Making a stand for Jesus is never easy. How cool would it be to make these hard changes and then God uses you to lead a friend to Christ! Go be a GREAT friend.
http://www.mylifepointe.com/audio-and-video-teachings-from-olathe-lifepointe-church-SURGE.aspx
0 comments:
Post a Comment