In This Issue:
Friends Dear Liberal Friend
Friendly Advice
A Friend
The Unfailing Friend
Volume: 886 November 28, 2022
Theme: Friends
Sign-up at https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/su/a26cc9M to receive the DAILY VIEW devotion. The daily e-mail includes a KJV chapter, a short devotion on something taught in that chapter, and more spiritual food for the hungry soul. Start your day with some good news from the Bible!
View 16+ years of printable, free BIBLE VIEWS at https://openthoumineeyes.com/newsletters.html. Make as many copies as you need and use them in your ministry, nursing homes (large print version available), Sunday school, deaf ministry, bus ministry, and church bulletin insert.
The right friend will build you up. A wrong friend may destroy you.
Many will have their plans and lives changed because they picked the wrong friend or gave a friend the wrong priority in their lives! Some do not even know what a true friend is.
Here is a short study on what the Bible says about a true friend:
Friendly all the time! A true friend loves us during the hard times and the good.
Proverbs 17:17-18 “A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity. A man void of understanding striketh hands, and becometh surety in the presence of his friend.”
Proverbs 27:10 “Thine own friend, and thy father’s friend, forsake not; neither go into thy brother’s house in the day of thy calamity: for better is a neighbour that is near than a brother far off.”
Friendly first! A true friend is friendly first, rather than waiting for others to approach him. Proverbs 18:24 “A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.”
Friendly giving! True friendship is given and not bought. You cannot buy true friendship.
Give, and you may get a person you can trust and like. Do not be friendly to earn friendship, though. You cannot make someone your friend.
Proverbs 19:6 “Many will intreat the favour of the prince: and every man is a friend to him that giveth gifts.” — but not true friends!
Friendly honest advice! A true friend tells what they believe is best for us because they care about what happens in our life.
Proverbs 22:6 “Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.”
Proverbs 27:10 “Ointment and perfume rejoice the heart: so doth the sweetness of a man’s friend by hearty counsel.”
“False friends are like vermin that abandon a sinking vessel or like the swallows that depart at the approach of winter.
True friends are like ivy that adheres to the tree in its decay. They are also like the light of phosphorus: brightest in the dark.” — Unknown
Dear Liberal Friend
Bill Brinkworth
I am so sorry about how our friendship has turned out. I was excited when I learned you were a “Christian.” Fellowship and friendship with another of like faith are important to me. However, I quickly realized that your definition and my definition of being a “Christian” were completely different.
When one says they are a “Christian,” I assume their thinking and lifestyle would be aligned with the Bible. Your “Christianity” is not what is described in my Bible. Most of the time, you did not even want to discuss God’s Word.
When the conversation led to spiritual things, you quickly went on the defense and accused me of judging or else argued the doctrine. We have spent more time discussing “what the Bible really means,” as you keep saying, rather than agreeing on the things of God.
My other friendships with Christians have never been this strained. It has always been easy and perfectly natural for my other friends and me to talk about the things of God because we are interested in them. You, obviously, are not.
I may not have been saved as long as you have been, but I know that the Bible teaches that a Christian should live differently than the unsaved. You seem to be very comfortable dressing like the world, talking like the world, acting like the world, doing things the world does, and going to places where the unsaved go.
Your philosophies are often identical to what the ungodly world thinks. It’s hard to tell any difference between you and the lost. I am not comfortable doing many of those things, and I believe some of them are against what God teaches in His Book.
The consequences of worldliness and its sin are some things from which I was saved. The world is losing and not heading for Heaven but is going to Hell. I have no interest in thinking and looking like the losing side.
Before I was saved, I did not have the joy or peace I do now by obeying the Lord. Being more like Christ is far safer, peaceful, and biblical.
Clearly, the Bible tells us to talk to others about Christ so they can be saved and have the promise of Heaven. Proverbs 11:30 says you are wise if you do this.
You have ridiculed and tried to stop me from witnessing to others. No, I don’t think it “is pushing God’s Word down their throat” by telling them. If someone didn’t tell me how to be saved, I would not be. I would feel very selfish if I didn’t share salvation with others and would be disobedient to God’s biblical commandments if I did not.
When I do witness to others, I often hear the word “hypocrite.” The unsaved world knows how Christians should live. They have seen many call themselves Christians, and people see they do not live the way they should.
After seeing more living the wrong way, they quickly assume that all Christians are hypocrites and living the wrong lifestyle. I certainly am not perfect and am still growing spiritually, but the people they are referring to are not people like me, but are people like you.
I love being saved. It is exciting to know that Christ died for all my sins and paid the price for them so I could go to Heaven. I owe Him so much. My desire now is to live for and serve Him.
Your liberal theology and lifestyle are doing much to harm and weaken the cause of Christ. It is giving those trying to serve and live for God a bad name. Your lifestyle is hurting the testimonies of those trying to live right.
Sadly, I think it is time to part as friends. No, I don’t believe myself “holier than thou.” I know what I was and can fall back into my old ways. I am concerned that your disobedience may rub off on me. Association with your unchristian lifestyle will also hurt my Christian testimony. I desire to be more like Christ and have that reputation, so our fellowship will have to stop until your lifestyle becomes more Christ-like.
Regretfully,
Bill
“Insomuch as anyone pushes you nearer to God, he or she is your friend.”
— Unknown
Friendly Advice
Bill Brinkworth
- WAIT on the right friend. Do not settle for the first acquaintance that comes around just because you are lonely.
- Pick a friend you look up to, not down to, or the relationship may hurt your walk with Christ.
- Pray about the friendship. Ask God how you can be a better friend, not just how that person can meet your needs.
- Be honest with your friend. If they dislike the real you, or the truth, they are not the right friend for you.
- Friendship is not popularity! Acquaintances are not necessarily friends.
- Stick up for a friend.
- Never put a friend down in front of others!
- Be a friend to someone that you feel needs one! They are often the most grateful and the most loyal!
- Obey your parents’ discernment about friends. If they say to stay away from a certain person, obey them!
- Marry a friend!
“A true friend never gets in your way except when you are on the way down.”— Unknown
When troubles come, your soul to try
You love a friend who just stands by.
Perhaps there’s nothing he can do,
The thing is strictly up to you.
For there are troubles all your own,
And paths the soul must tread alone,
Times when love can’t smooth the road,
Nor friendship lift the heavy load.
But, just to feel you have a friend,
Who will stand by until the end,
Whose sympathy through all endures,
Whose warm handclasp is always yours,
It helps somehow to pull you through.
Although there’s nothing he can do.
And so, with fervent heart we say,
“God bless the friend who just stands by.”
“They who have loved together have been drawn close; they who have struggled together are forever linked, but they who have suffered together have known the most sacred bond of all.” — Author Unknown
The Unfailing Friend
Author Unknown
The friendship of Jesus is lasting. Other friends may grow old and cold. It is not so with the company of our Saviour.
Other friends may misunderstand us. Jesus never.
His love is the same in our youth as in old age. The friendship will instead grow stronger as we get older.
If you have lost what to you seemed everything, if you find yourself friendless and alone, despised and forsaken, seek to get acquainted with this most lovely, dear and precious Friend — Jesus.
