Nine Ways To Know If My Friendship Is Healthy

Friendship is so important. From the swings at the park to giggling girls on a slumber party and meeting your friend at the coffee shop for a time to catch up, the idea of having a multitude of friends or even a best friend is something that warms the heart of every girl and woman alike. I think that God smiles at our friendships - at least our healthy attempts at them.

There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity. Samuel Johnson

What is a friendship and what should I be looking for in a friend?

Webster's Dictionary of 1828 says
A Friend: One who is attached to another by affection; one who entertains for another sentiments of esteem, respect, and affection, which lead him to desire his company, and to seek to promote his happiness and prosperity; opposed to foe or enemy.

 Let's See What God Has To Say About Our Friendships:

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant, does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.  John 15:12-15

Here Jesus explains to us how we become his friend. How his ultimate act of friendship is to lay down his life for us and how our obedience to him in doing what he has instructed us shows our love and friendship of others. He tells us how to be friends with others by loving them like he has already loved us and showing a sacrificial love for others. A love that costs us something.

Let's see what else the bible has to say about friendship.

• Do for others what you want them to do for you Luke 6:31 (ERV) 

• Good people are careful about choosing their friends, but evil people always choose the wrong ones. Proverbs 12:26 (ERV) 

• Be with wise men and become wise. Be with evil men and become evil. Proverbs 13:20

• A scoffer seeks wisdom and finds none [for his ears are closed to wisdom], But knowledge is easy for one who understands [because he is willing to learn]. Leave the presence of a [shortsighted] fool, For you will not find knowledge or hear godly wisdom from his lips. Proverbs 14:6-7 (AMP) 

• Don’t be friends with people who become angry easily. Don’t stay around quick-tempered people. If you do, you may learn to be like them. Then you will have the same problems they do. Proverbs 22:24-25 (ERV) 

• Do not be deceived: “Bad company ruins good morals.” or as the ERV says even more clearly Don’t be fooled: “Bad friends will ruin good habits.” 1 Corinthians 15:33 

• Be devoted to one another with [authentic] brotherly affection [as members of one family], give preference to one another in honor; Romans 12:10 (AMP) 

•  Do not let unwholesome [foul, profane, worthless, vulgar] words ever come out of your mouth, but only such speech as is good for building up others, according to the need and the occasion, so that it will be a blessing to those who hear [you speak].  And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God [but seek to please Him], by whom you were sealed and marked [branded as God’s own] for the day of redemption [the final deliverance from the consequences of sin]. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor [perpetual animosity, resentment, strife, fault-finding] and slander be put away from you, along with every kind of malice [all spitefulness, verbal abuse, malevolence].  Be kind and helpful to one another, tender-hearted [compassionate, understanding], forgiving one another [readily and freely], just as God in Christ also forgave [a]you. Ephesians 4:29-32 (AMP)

• Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. Colossians 3:12-14 

Ok, so what have we learned?
 What are the nine ways to know my friendship is healthy?

1. Our relationships with our friends and loved ones should be sacrificial.

2. Be the friend that you would love to have. Be that person to others. Be the person God called you to be.

3. Take time and be careful the kind of person that you choose as your close friends. I am not saying we don't have a chance to minister to others that are lost, but our close friends should be someone that is a believer and living a righteous lifestyle.

4. Spend time with wise and godly people - and you will encourage one another to become wise and godly.

5. Don't hang out with people who mess around and who never let you know who they really are. You become who you hang out with.

6. Christ should be the center of every friendship.

7. Don't be around angry people. They will rub off on you and you will end up acting like them.

8. We are supposed to treat one another as brothers and sisters and treat others with honor. We are called to be compassionate, forgiving, humble, kind, loving and patient. But we are also to be holy. We are to be the iron that sharpens iron in Proverbs 27:17 as we live out life with one another. We are to spur one another on to live a life pleasing to God and not tempt one another to sin and live lives that we know are not pleasing to Him.

9. It is so hard and there are so many temptations in life. All around us, we hear cursing and compromise. We see sin heralded and a godly lifestyle made fun of. We need to make sure we are the kind of friend that helps our friends to live out our lives in a way that is pleasing to God. The words that we and our friends speak should be kind and helpful. We shouldn't be profane in our speech or our joking but helping one another to be the best we can be.

Bible Quotes Came from The Bible Gateway



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