Proverbs 12: 26 ''The righteous should choose his friends carefully, For the way of the wicked leads them astray.
For those of you who have entered
into a true Spirit-filled, surrendered walk with the Lord where God and Jesus
are now leading and directing your life in the direction They want it to go in
- one of the first things that you will find happening to you is that God will
start to prune out the people that He does not want in your life and start to
bring in the people that He does want in.
As you will see in the Scripture
verses listed below - the Bible tells us to choose our friends carefully, that
he who walks with wise people will become wise himself but that he who keeps
company with fools will he himself be destroyed. The Bible tells us that we not
to be unequally yoked with unbelievers and that we are to stay away from people
who cause divisions and offenses and to withdraw from every brother who walks
disorderly.
This does not mean that we cannot
"work" with the lost, the downtrodden and the people who need to find
God and His message of salvation. When Jesus came to our earth in the flesh -
He always went after the sinners and outcasts. But when Jesus went after these
sinners - it was always for the purpose of getting them saved and cleaned up.
Jesus did not chase after everyone.
He ripped on the Pharisees and many of the high-ranking Jewish leaders. Some
people are open to be helped - others are not. The Bible tells us to stay away
from "dogs" and beware of people who are "evil workers."
The first thing God will do with
your life is to start to set some boundaries. He will now decide the path that
you will now follow in Him. He will be leading you into the jobs He wants you
to have. If you are single and not married yet - He will lead you to the mate
that He wants you to marry if it is in His will for your life that you get
married.
And once the boundary lines start to
go up - one of the first things that God will start to do is decide who is
going to come into those boundary lines and who will be going out. In other
words - God will be deciding who your true friends are going to be and who will
not.
The main reason God will be helping you in choosing who your true friends are going to be is because His ultimate aim for you while living down here on earth is to "transform" and "sanctify" you. In other words - He wants you to "spiritually grow up."
The Bible tells us that we are
transformed by the "renewing of our minds" and God's ultimate aim for
us is our sanctification - where He starts to begin to make us to become more
holy like Himself.
The reason God will start to take
out the friends in your life that He does not want you to have is because some
of those people may be negative influences in your life. They may not be open
to "growing in God" like you are and all they will do is try and hold
you back when you start your own spiritual growth in the Lord. They will start
criticizing and making fun of you and all they will end up doing is stunting
your growth in the Lord.
God will not put up with this and He
will thus be taking these bad influences out of your life very early on once
you enter into this surrendered walk with Him. For those of you who are married
and have children - it is the same thing when you do not want your children
hanging out with other children who you know would be a bad and negative
influence on your child.
You know that if your children start
hanging out with the wrong crowd - that they can become very easily corrupted
in a very short period of time. As a result, you will become very protective on
who your children will be choosing to be their friends once they become old
enough to start choosing who their playmates are going to be.
It is the exact same way with God
the Father! That is why God will be moving to take out these negative
influences very early on in your walk with Him. Once that starts to happen -
you have to go with the program or you could cause God to start pulling back on
you. And once that starts to happen - you will start to "backslide"
and everything could start to shut down.
If you allow God to prune out the
people that He does not want in your life - then what He will start to do is to
bring in the people that He does want you to be friends with. I call these
types of friends "God friends." These will be other Godly,
Spirit-filled Christians who are truly walking in good stead with the Lord and
they will now be the people that you will be able to share your walk with!
As you will see in the Scripture verses listed below - you will need other Christian friends to help you grow in the Lord. The Bible tells us that we only "know in part." No one has all the answers. By sharing your walk with other good solid Christian friends - you can each help each other out in your pursuit of the knowledge and ways of God.
You will know some things about God
they may not know and they will know some things that you may not know. You
thus are able to contribute to each other's storehouse of knowledge.
One of the verses listed below state
that two friends can sharpen each other up like "iron sharpens iron."
Just like one piece of iron can make the other piece of iron extremely sharp by
rubbing up against it - two solid Christian friends can have the same type of
affect on one another by sharing their own personal walks in the Lord with one
other.
By having other solid Christian friends to share your journey with - you will literally accelerate your growth and development in God because you will have more than one source in which to feed and learn from. You will be learning about God from your own personal adventures with Him - but you will also be learning more about God from your other friends' personal journey with Him.
How many of these types of God
friends can you expect God to bring in? Only God will be able to answer that
for each and every one of you. Some may only get one or two to start off with -
others may get 5 or 10. Let God make the decision as to how many and when they
will be brought into your life.
What I have learned is that it is not the quantity or amount that comes in - but it is the quality. You are much better off having just one or two good, solid quality friends as versus 10 or 15 that are not as good quality as the one or two may be.
Every Christian is operating at
different levels of spiritual development with the Lord. God knows best who
would be best suited for you at the level that you are currently operating at
with Him. When God does bring in these types of special God friends to share
your journey with - they are real treasures. These God friendships will be
Anointed by God Himself due to the "feedings" that will occur in
them.
Sadly, what you will find out very
early on, is just because someone may be a saved and born again Christian does
not mean that this person has his or her "act" together in God. Some
have become too judgmental and too critical in their walks with the Lord. Some
have become arrogant and pompous - thinking that they have all the answers to
everything. They will tend to look down on anyone else that is not operating at
the knowledge levels that they are operating at.
Some have become so flakey in their
walks with the Lord - that they have lost touch with reality and you won't be
able to "connect" with any of them. God knows best as to who will be
best suited for you - so let Him guide you to the ones that He wants you to
connect up with.
I have seen God do this so many
times for others - that I literally consider it a miraculous piece of work -
especially as to how He gets you to meet some of these people in the first
place. Some of these "chess moves" are quite incredible as most of
these people will be total strangers to you until God moves to match the two of
you up.
The other thing that could occur
besides God matching you up with total strangers is that He may move on someone
else you know - but that you are not particular good friends with. That person
gets saved and "plugged in" - and then he or she finds out that you
too are saved and plugged in - and now a good God friendship starts to build up
as you now have something in common with one another to start to build a good
solid friendship with.
This could be another member in your
family, someone that you may work with, a friend who you may have known from
your past, someone you may see at church from time to time but never really
talked with or someone you may meet on the internet through a chat room. The
possibilities are endless as to where these people may come from.
These God friends can come from
anywhere and at anytime - so keep your radars up - as you never know when God
may move to bring one of them into your life.
Now I'll go to the actual Scripture
verses confirming all of the above for you.
"The righteous should choose his friends carefully for the way of the wicked leads them astray." (Proverbs 12:26)
2. Benefits of Choosing Good God
Friends
Here are some very interesting
verses showing you why God does want you to have other good friends in which to
share your walk with.
Here are 6 really good verses
showing you that there is safety in the multitude of counselors, that plans go
awry without other people to hash things out with, that "war" is
waged by wise counsel with others, that learning is increased by listening to
wise counsel and that if you cease to listen to wise counsel that you will
start to stray from being able to acquire more knowledge in God.
"A wise man is strong, yes, a man of knowledge
increases strength; for by wise counsel you will wage your own war, and in
a multitude of counselors there is safety." (Proverbs 24:5)
"Every purpose is established by counsel; by wise
counsel wage war." (Proverbs 20:18)
"Without counsel, plans go awry, but in the
multitude of counselors they are established." (Proverbs 15:22)
"Listen to and receive instruction, that you may
be wise in your latter days." (Proverbs 19:20)
"Cease listening to instruction, my son, and you
will stray from the words of knowledge." (Proverbs 19:2)
3. As Iron Sharpens Iron
This next verse is extremely
fascinating as it tells us that two friends can sharpen each other up as iron
sharpens iron. A true God friend can help keep you sharp in the Spirit, let you
know when you are getting too far off track, help you get through and make
sense of some of the downswings that can occur in your walk, confirm and help
bear witness when you are on the right track, give you pep talks when needed
and help keep you in the game when you start to get too mad and too frustrated
when things do not go your way.
You each serve to help keep each
other "up" in the Lord so you both can continue to stay on the
straight and narrow road that God has you set on. You can also help each other
out if one starts to be tempted to do something they should not be engaging in.
Here is the verse:
"As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend." (Proverbs 27:17)
4. Do Not Be Unequally Yoked with
Unbelievers
These next set of verses tells us
not to be yoked together with unbelievers, foolish men, "dogs", evil
workers, those who are disorderly, reckless, contentious, always causing
trouble and strife, etc.
There is one verse in particular
that specifically tells us that "evil company corrupts good habits."
This verse perfectly shows what can happen to any of your children if they
start hanging out with the wrong type of people.
Conclusion
Just as God saw fit to create Eve
for Adam in the Garden of Eden when He first created the first man - God still
places an extremely high value on personal friendships and He will make sure to
lead the right people and the right number of people in your life so that you
can each help each other out to go farther and fly higher in the Lord.
When Jesus first started to send the
12 apostles out to walk with His Anointing - He would send them out "two
by two."
Once you enter into a real
supernatural walk with the Lord - you will go "nuts" if you do not
have someone to share your walk with. There are simply too many God things that
will start to happen in your life and you will need someone to talk with, to
vent with, to share with, to learn from one another and to help keep each other
on track.
No comments :
Post a Comment