Essay: A Godly Friendship

A Godly Friendship

“A friend loveth at all times, and brother is born for adversity.” (Proverbs 17:17). This describes a godly friendship. A godly friend is there when everyone else runs away and hides. He doesn’t just stay for the good times and then quietly slip out whenever you encounter a little turbulence.

A godly friendship consists of two or more people like this. But it also consists of more. Many regular friendships have friends who are always arguing, splitting up, becoming friends with some one else and using all of the former friends secrets to hurt him. That is unkind. A secret is a secret and should stay one until the person the secret originated with declares otherwise.
There are even some friends who take your secrets and spread them around the second you tell them to him. This is definitely not a real friend. This person is a reputation wrecker and will wreck anyone who lets him do so.

No body wants to have a bad friend, yet many fail to be good friends in return. They fail to take to heart the principle – if you want to have friends you have to be a good friend. Good friends never share secrets that are not their own, they never talk bad about the other, and they always stick by each other in time of trouble.

Godly friendships are not for the fair weather type. If you run away the second one of your friends falls into hard times, don’t expect others to stay by you when you’re in trouble. Be the kind of friend you want to have.

If you have friends who are not Christians, you have to be extra careful to be a good friend. If your non-Christian friend sees how you’re different (in a good way) from his other friends, he will be far more receptive than if you are just another fair weather friend. You must learn to “walk your talk”.

If you aren’t going to walk your talk, then don’t talk! Telling some one that you’re different and actually being different are two very different things. Non-Christians will watch you when you do and then compare what they see to what you say, and if the two don’t match, they’ll think you’re phony. Better to have the walk without the talk, than to have the talk without the walk.
You’re best friend should be a Christian. A best friend who isn’t will drag you down into sin. Some one who doesn’t know Jesus can never ever be godly. They may be able to put up a good disguise and make you think they’re godly, but as the Bible says “You will know them by their fruit.” Before you make some one your best friend, make sure you both have the same eternal destination. Many people fail to take these guidelines to heart. They end up without friends, if their faults were of the driving away variety, or worse, without the close fellowship you used to have with God, if the fault was to let a non-Christian have a lot of influence over him. Both events create loneliness, which can drive humans, who are, whether they think so or not, social oriented creatures, crazy.