Am I a Godly Friend?

Editor’s Note: If you look back over the GH issues during 2007, you will note that there haven’t been very many Women’s Pages included this year. I apologize for that. My intention was to write more articles than I have been able to, but somehow the time slipped away and I didn’t realize my intentions. I have asked in the past for you ladies out there to send me articles that we can include. If I have articles on hand written by others, then we could have this page full every month.

Please help us out by contributing written material for this page. The easiest thing would be to email your articles to me at lchammett@gmail. com. Thanks for considering this request!!
—lch

How often have you considered what kind of a friend you are? We all want to have good friends. We have all had good friends, some who have been lifelong and some who have come and gone. We all need to have friends.

Many of us have friends we made while we were in high school or younger. Some of us made friends during our college years; those of us who work outside the home have friends at work; and we all most likely have friends from church.

What do you offer as a friend? Are we ever taught how to be a friend? Like parenting, there’s really not a manual that gives instruction on friendship. Friendship comes more naturally to some than others, but we can all learn to be good friends.

Friendship is mentioned 152 times in the Bible. The love that we are to show to our friends is the same kind of love that God shows to us. There are several scriptures and chapters that speak about friendship. In 3 John, friend or beloved is used six or seven times. There’s not a lot of meaty doctrine in this chapter, and it’s written to a dear friend. It’s a letter about friendship and how to be a friend.

We should above all try to be a godly friend. As a godly friend, we should be concerned about our friends’ futures (3 John 1-4). John prays for good health for his friend, Gaius—spiritual and physical health. He wishes for Gaius to be surrounded by and centered in the truth, and John is happy to know that his children (those he has led to Christ) are walking in the truth.

How many friends do you have outside of the church with whom you spend a good bit of time? Do those friends know that you are a Christian? Do they know how important your walk with God is? Can they see that you have something special? Do you live a different sort of life at work or school than you do when you’re at church?

A true friend is going to want to share her faith in God with her friends. If you’re like me, however, it isn’t always easy to speak about God to some people. I have some dear friends who are good people, who believe in God and live moral, good lives. However, they worship in a denominational church or not at all and think that they’re okay spiritually.

It’s hard for me to approach them with the possibility that they aren’t right with God. We are to be bold in our proclamation about God. How sad on the judgment day for our friends to look at us and ask why we never shared the gospel with them here on earth. We will be held accountable!

What about a friend whom you see participating in something that is against God’s will or something that is going to harm her. We often don’t want to confront her in this sort of situation because we’re afraid of rejection.

Again, we must stand up and show her the error of her ways. A godly friend will speak up to her friends when she is exposed to bad influences. We can’t sit back and watch our friends self-destruct. We must let them know that we wouldn’t say anything if we didn’t care for her and her well-being.

If we are good friends, we will stay in touch with our friends, no matter how many miles or years separate us. I recently visited with a friend whom I have known for over 30 years. However, we haven’t seen each other for about 20 years. It was wonderful to visit with her—it was almost like we had never been apart. I will confess that I haven’t kept in as close touch with her as I should have over the years. We need to be diligent in letting our friends know that we love them and that they are important in our lives. We need to make sure our friends know that we are there for them to share joys and sorrows.

We have the ultimate example of love in God and his care and concern for us. We can never reach the level of love that He has for us, but we can certainly make an effort. Only by studying the Bible and learning more about His love can we understand< how we can be a good friend.

Examine your relationships with your friends and ask yourself if you could be considered as a godly friend.

If you see that you’re lacking in some way, pray for God’s guidance as you make every effort to improve your friendships. Let your light shine as a godly friend!