Faith Baptist Church
4258 Botetourt Road
Fincastle, Virginia 24090
(540) 473-2325
One of the greatest blessings in time is having a good friend, or friends. Your spiritual maturity brings you to a place in life where you do not expect perfection from others, and they do not expect it from you. You do not have mental attitude sins that muddy the waters. Your relaxed mental attitude unto the Lord causes you to never feel you have to put on a front with your friends. We call this blessing, social prosperity.
Social prosperity - This means you have true friends. You have someone you can count on to be there for you; someone who will back you up; someone with whom you will not feel you have to justify yourself before. As one person has said regarding giving an account of your life; “Your enemies will not believe you and your friends will not care.”
When you are with a real friend you are not afraid to let your guard down. You do not feel you have to be on your toes or on your “a game” lest your faults be found out. This is one reason many believers get along with the lost better than other believer friends. They are less likely to judge you if you mess up or show your humanity. You will find out if you haven’t already that as you mature as a believer your circle of true friends will become more selective and fewer in number. However, you do not need a stable of friends to be blessed; perhaps just one or two is plenty. One good quality friend is better than a thousand fair weather friends. When you are with your true friends you both leave each other’s company refreshed; not exasperated. Either one of you do not have to worry about what kind of mood the other is going to be in the next time you get together.
Prov.17:17a “A friend loveth at all times...” In the Hebrew text the emphasis is reversed; “At all times a friend loves...” Even when adversity comes a true friend stays by you. The love of God inside of you compels you to care and not to judge. Spiritually blessed Christian friendships may be made up of totally different personalities, educational background, ethnicity, economic means and so forth. You do not stay friends just because you can get something from the other. True friends are not the folks who stick with you as long as you do what they want, or have what they want. They do not leave you when you’re up against adversity.
Spiritual compatibility runs much deeper than blood kinship compatibility or human compatibility. However, it is wonderful when you can have both blood kinship and spiritual compatibility.
Prov.18:24 “A friend who has friends must show himself friendly; and there is a friend that sticks closer than a brother.”
The surface reading of this verse gives the notion that if you do not have friends it is because you are not a friendly person. This is the easiest conclusion because it makes sense and it is the easiest way to translate this verse. However, the Hebrew text says this a lot differently. A man of many indiscriminate friends comes to loss, but a true friend sticks closer than a brother. For most people if you are not always smiling and greet them first they will think less of you. If you do not have something to offer them they will shun you. If you have much wealth to offer, as seen in the man of Prov.19:4, you will have many friends until the wealth is gone. But a true friend cares not about your wealth.
It is true that a blessed friend is hospitable and accommodating, but not a push over. A blessed friend is not an opportunist. They have no ulterior motive for being friends with you...
Prov.27:17 “Iron sharpens iron; so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend.”
Job was known to be a man who instructed many and strengthened the weak. His words upheld those that were falling, Job.4:3-4. He comforted people with his God given wisdom. And to those who had a heavy heart they needed his comfort, not his money.
To be a good friend you are not afraid for your friends to be honest with you, and if you may react at what they say at first, they will not forsake you while you take the time to process what they said. A true friend gives you the space and time for looking at yourself without pressuring you.
II Cor.7:13 “Therefore, we were comforted in your comfort; yea and exceedingly the more joyed we for the joy of Titus, because his spirit was refreshed by you all.”
This passage of Scripture expresses how much a good friend means. Fellowship among Christian friends is therapeutic to the soul and the body. When you see this friend your face lights up. Your heart is warmed. A rush of good memories comes to mind and everything wrong with the world fades away. You intellectually challenge each other to go deeper into the things of the Lord and deeper into what makes you tick. You can do this because you do not have the inhibition of pretense in your friendship.
Christians do not know what they are missing if they do not have a close Christian friend. What a blessing from the Lord.
I conclude with this comment, and I do so with great reverence; that the greatest friend we have is Jesus Christ. He is there for us at all times and in all places. He knows our sorrows; our disappointments; our fears and our temperament. He knows our faults, yet he goes no where. And the more Bible doctrine we learn of him the more we come to lean on his ever present friendship.
We never forget he is our Lord and as long as we do not forget this we can build on this friendship-kinship.