Godly Companionship

Be not deceived; evil communications corrupt good manners. 1Corinthians 15v33

Friendship is not something that the Christian community affords to overlook. It’s a do or die affair where destiny is concerned. It is either you nail it or you bang it. One choice of friendship can determine where you will be ten years from now, you may find your life worth living or very devastated just because of who you call friend.

You need people in your life that catapult you to your destiny. Some friends are vision blockers and destiny destroyers….You cannot effectively run the race with a load of vision blocking and destiny destroying friends

 The major thing to understand about this is that there is a difference between friendship and association. You may have many associates who are not really your friends yet you will still call them friends for lack of a better sounding term. Friendship is more than a close acquaintance, more than association; it is a covenant; that is why a few people were called friends by God. Abraham had that name (James 2v23); David was called a man after God’s heart (Acts 13v22). He failed to be called friend. God spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaketh to his friend, but was never called the friend of God. No one in the entire Old Testament (Old covenant, dispensation of the law) was God’s friend, but in the New Testament (New covenant, dispensation of Grace), Jesus says we are His friends if we obey His commandment which is love, and He says  ”henceforth I have called you friends (John 15v14-15).“ The prerequisite of being God’s friend is obeying the commandment, which is love.

If God is very cautious as to whom He calls friends, it is also expedient for us to understand who our friends are. The Bible warns in Proverbs 12v26 saying,”The righteous should choose his friends carefully, For the way of the wicked leads them astray“ (NKJV)

Special care and diligence ought to be applied in choosing friends. The different attributes that you have determine the calibre of people that you will attract in your life; the attributes will attract and repel certain people in your life. Such attributes as mental capacity, level of wealth, depth of your ability to communicate, your attitude, your behaviour, passions and desires are some of the factors that determine the kind of people you will attract. The Bible says, ”the rich hath many friends“ (Proverbs 14v20); it also says, ”wealth maketh many friends; but the poor man is separated from his neighbor“ (Proverbs 19v4). Rich people attract many friends to themselves. The more you increase in wealth, the more the friends you attract. It is only left for you to know whether they are genuine or not. Intelligent people, especially at school, have a lot of friends. A few people want to associate with poor and with foolish people.

One major characteristic of modern friends is the parasitic attitude. Many people who want to be your friends do not want to contribute anything to your life but like parasites, they suck life from you: your money, your knowledge, your help, all for nothing in return. Just look at the friendship that the snake imposed on the woman. The only party that was going to benefit from the friendship was the snake, and he did, he deceived the woman and eventually the man and ended up owning the keys that Jesus had to go and recover thousands of years later. Fake friends only want you for what you can offer. Look at the scenario of Naomi, Ruth and Orpah. When Orpah realised that Naomi was no longer able to bear a child for her to marry, she returned to her land, to her people. She had a parasitic attitude. She was only willing to be Naomi’s friend as long as she could suck a husband from her. When she realised that there was nothing left to suck, she abandoned her. Think of Job, how that he was left with three friends when he became poor. Look at the prodigal son, how that his friends deserted him after sucking all his wealth. Folks, Solomon knew what he was talking about when he said that the righteous man should choose his friends carefully.

Be very watchful over one thing where friends are concerned. That one thing is selfishness. Selfishness is a force that pushes people into becoming false friends. Selfish ambitions encourage people to become false friends, they seek connections and affiliation to facilitate their own selfish ambitions at the expense of the interests of the people with whom they associate.

You need friends that add value to your life, and to whose life you add value, at no one’s expense. Be very selfless when it comes to becoming friends. You need people in your life that catapult you to your destiny. Some friends are vision blockers and destiny destroyers. You need people in your life that give light to your path towards your divine destiny, people who are willing to die for you to achieve your vision. Jesus says, ”Greater love hath no man than this; that a man lay down his life for his friends. (John 15v13)“ You need friends in your life who, when you share your vision with them they can encourage you and help you build capacity and develop you until you are able and ready to see that vision to fruition.

Look at the two boys in the Bible that I call genuine friends. These are David and Jonathan. Jonathan would work flat out to protect David from being killed by Saul. The Bible even says that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. Jonathan spied on his own father and revealed his plans of killing David, Jonathan spake good of David unto Saul his father (1Samuel 19:4), he saved David from the anger of his father by urging him to hide in a cave and sending

signals to notify him of his father’s anger. Talk about true friendship, compromising your relationship with your father for the sake of your friend. Abraham was willing to sacrifice his only begotten son Isaac, for God’s sake, and he was called the friend of God.

It was just unfortunate that Jonathan stayed with his evil father and he died during a war together with him and his brothers. Real friendship is based on love and is not self-seeking. Some connections that you have can hamper your progress in life. There comes a time in life where it becomes necessary to let go of some people that you call your friends. You cannot effectively run a race if you are carrying heavy things. This is the reason why the Bible urges us to ”lay aside every weight (Hebrews 12v1)“ You cannot effectively run the race with a load of vision blocking and destiny destroying friends. You cannot afford to carry with you skeptical friends who are always discouraging you and diverting your attention from achieving your vision. It is sometimes heartbreaking to delete some phone numbers from your phonebook, but if you are serious about your vision, you can let go of some people and parasites. Did you see how Jacob parted ways with Laban and immediately angels came to him? There are some opportunities that are far from you because of some companions you have. Have you ever asked yourself why God asked Abraham to separate himself from his family and friends in Genesis 12? It was because God did not want Abraham to carry the weight of worthless people. Jesus said in Luke 14v26 ”If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.“ hating does not mean without love but means removing priority. One simple way of getting rid of friends is changing your character.

In our opening scripture, the Bible tells us not to be deceived because bad company ruins good habits. Do you know that there are some friends that if you spend the whole day with them you will not pray, you will not open your Bible, you will not sing or play Gospel music, you will not meditate, let alone merely talk about God. You will feel very inferior if you do anything for God in the presence of those friends. Now that is exactly what I am talking about when I say drop such friends. Learn to depend on God and this will help you to consecrate yourself from such friends because the usual cause of these friendships is that you have something material or intrinsic that you get from them.

Know the identity of your friends in Christ. If they are not born again they qualify to be called evil associations (2Corinthians 6v14). It is not bad to associate with people who are not born again but it is important to be very careful concerning the influence that they have upon your life. Dominate your unborn again friends in influence and spiritually otherwise they will lead you astray. The Bible says, ”iron sharpeneth iron: so a friend sharpeneth the countenance of his friend“ (Proverbs 27v17)Friends edify each other, and if both are born again, they help each other spiritually; if they are not born again, they help each other grow in a godless manner; but if they are mixed, one will dominate the other. When two forces collide, one will bow down. The Bible says no man can serve two masters because he will love one and hate the other (see Matthew 6v24).

I encourage you to take extra care when choosing friends, a friendship is a covenant that is characterised by impartation especially of personality. That is why you can derive someone’s character by observing the character of his friend.

Stay blessed and remember, that

Jesus Is Lord!!! TLG