Godly Relationships and Purity | Friendships
For this week’s BlogThursday post, we will take a look at the first part of the “Godly Relationships and Purity” series, that is, Friendships. We will discuss how to find balance in friendships, viewing biblical examples of friendships, and dig deeper into how we can stay pure in our friendships.
Finding Balance
The topic of friendships is something that many of us in the body of Christ struggle with. Although the Bible calls us to be a light in the darkness and bring the lost to Christ, the word of God also says that we should not be friends of the world (James 4:4) and walk with the wise (Proverbs 13:20); so finding that balance can be a bit tricky for us young Christians. I would say understanding the difference between ‘friends’ and ‘companions’ is crucial to having balance; we can have ‘companions’ who are not following Christ so that we can be a light to them and bring them to Jesus, but our ‘friends’ must be Godly because they are the ones who we will spend most of our time with. We should also be careful about who we let into our inner circle. The people in our inner circle must include people who are on fire for Christ who can hold us accountable for our actions and build us up in the faith when needed. They must be friends who love us enough to tell us the truth in love even when it hurts. We must find balance with spreading the love of God to all those around us (both unbelievers and believers), while keeping close Godly friends whose lives are rooted in the word of God, so that we can all grow together.
The Example of Jesus
If we take a look at Jesus, although He sat with sinners and had a wide influence on thousands saving many souls, He had only 12 close friends and told these 12 disciples secrets that he didn’t reveal to any others. This shows us that we must be careful who we are close to, and who we let our most vulnerable weaknesses known to. One of the biggest strategies Satan likes to use is placing people within our inner circle who are wolves in sheep’s clothing. We all know the story of how Judas, one of Jesus’ closest friends, betrayed Jesus right? Judas was a worker for Satan when he betrayed Jesus - if the enemy used this strategy against Jesus, would he not try to use it against the sons and daughters of God? So we must always spiritually discern who is for us and who is against us because just because someone looks like they’re for us doesn’t mean they actually are, hence the need for Godly discernment.
How To Stay Pure In Friendships
If you notice that you are falling into sin after spending time with a friend, that could be a big indicator that that person is not sent by God. 1 Corinthians 15:33 reads, ‘Do not be misled: “Bad company corrupts good character.”’ We cannot be naive and think that because we’re Christians we have enough self-control to not sin while spending a lot of our time around people who live a sinful lifestyle. Remember, although we are born again, we still have a flesh that is warring against our spirit. In a culture where sin is applauded and righteous acts are frowned upon, it's so simple for our flesh to just conform to the ways of the world. When constantly being around worldly friends, at times it can feel so easy to fall into sin due to the fear of our friends judging us. There’s a saying “Tell me your 5 closest friends and I’ll tell you who you will become” - the point of this saying is that your friends have a great influence on your actions. My advice on how to stay pure in friendships is to notice who is influencing who. Are you the one influencing your friends to follow Christ? Or are your friends the ones influencing you to follow the world? If the answer is yes to the second question, I would recommend that you bring this up to God in prayer and pray that God would remove any friendship that doesn’t glorify Him from your life. A strongly built foundation in the word of God is needed for us to stay pure in the eyes of God because the more we actively engage in the word of God the closer we are to God - James 4:8 “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you...”. When we actively engage in the word of God, our discernment and convictions are stronger; we are more sensitive to the voice of the Holy Spirit and our spiritual maturity increases. Staying strongly rooted and active in the word of God doesn’t just help us to obtain biblical wisdom but most importantly it helps us to maintain biblical wisdom; so if we see a friend of ours doing something that goes against the Bible, we have the knowledge that we should not engage in such activities, and the Holy Spirit will convict us so much so that we are obedient to His voice, cutting off friendships that negatively affect our relationship with God, refraining ourselves from sinning.
On a final note, there’s a quote from a poem that reads, “People always come into your life for a reason, a season and a lifetime”. There may have been past friends that you were extremely close to and thought that your relationship would last for a lifetime, but you’ve lost contact with them; I would like to encourage you that God is an intentional God, and He placed those people in your life for a season for a reason - know that it wasn’t in vain. For anyone struggling to find Godly friends, the first piece of advice I would give is to ask God to bring you Christian friends. My second piece of advice is, be that Christian friend! Act like that Christian friend that you want in your life! Once you do that, those Godly friends will come your way without you even realising it. After the church service ends, don't leave straight away, but socialise with people there. We’ve all been there and I know it can be nerve wracking, but once you take that first step, you’ll see the Holy Spirit move because you first backed this up with prayer.
Prayer
Father God, if there are any people in my life who are not sent from You and are sent from Satan, I ask that You would remove them from my life. I pray that You would bring born-again Christian friends into my life where we can edify each other in the faith, grow together and glorify Your name. May You mould me into being the true Christian friend that You want me to be.
In Jesus’ name,
Amen.