Who is a Friend?

A true friend is another person who wants for you to be close to God. He wants the best for you. He is there for you. He encourages you to love and obey God. If you have to disobey God in anything in order to get someone to like you, then THEY ARE NOT YOUR FRIEND.

David and Jonathan's friendship is an example of true friendship. Jonathan's father was Saul, the first king of Israel. Jonathan was next in line to the throne. But it was more important to him to obey God than to desire even all of the money and power that go along with being the king. God had said that David would be king, and would replace Saul, because Saul had sinned greatly against God, to the point where God had said He would remove him and replace him with someone who was better than him, and that person was David. Not a person who was worth more – every person has the same value and worth, but a better person – someone who was a man after God's own heart. Jonathan was also very obedient to God, but to make Jonathan the next king would have looked like God approved of the way Saul had acted as king. Jonathan watched out for David's life, even when his own father was trying to murder David, because Jonathan loved God more than he loved anyone else or anything, and because he was a true friend to David. A person who chooses to be godly intentionally gravitates toward other people who are godly. He chooses his friends and he chooses them wisely; he doesn't let other people choose him, and he chooses his friends carefully. He would rather be alone than to be with bad people. He doesn't just hang around with whatever people show that they want to hang around with him. He is wise and doesn't trust people unless and until they prove themselves trustworthy. When he finds a true friend, he is loyal to them, but his first allegiance is always to God.

“Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but deceitful are the kisses of an enemy.” - Proverbs 27:6

This verse means that a true friend will tell you the truth, and tell you what you need to hear, even if it hurts you, because he is a faithful friend and he truly loves you. Friends of the same gender sometimes used to kiss each other on the cheek as a greeting, and it was not sexual in nature, just as Judas Iscariot kissed the Lord Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. An enemy may flatter you, and may say things to you and about you that you like, but they are grooming you for something very evil. They are buttering you up in order to use you. They don't love you. They don't even care about you. Break off that fake friendship right now, no matter what happens or no matter what you think may happen. The flattery of a fake friend, who is actually an enemy, is deceitful. They are deceiving you for an evil reason. You can't imagine or figure out what they are really planning, but it will hurt you to be a part of it. Sometimes, we think that the people who love us hate us, and that the people who hate us love us, because the world, the flesh, and the devil are always speaking to us even without our permission. We can hear them, and we don't have to seek them. They seek us out. “Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” - 1 Peter 5:8 God is always a gentleman. He doesn't force His way into your life. You can also hear Him, but you have to seek Him. He is never far from you, but you have to cultivate and develop a desire to have a relationship with Him, because it doesn't come naturally. We naturally gravitate toward sin, but we can choose – make a decision – to love, obey, and follow God, and we can do it, with His help. You have to seek God, but He promises that we WILL find Him IF we search for Him with all our heart. “You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.” - Jeremiah 29:13. “And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.” - Hebrews 11:6. Soon, I plan to do a Bible study on how all of us have been hurt just by living in a sinful world, and in our sin nature, we think that it's okay to self-medicate with sinful things, but that's it's weird to hunger and thirst after God, even though He commands us to do so. We need to decide to long for, pant after, God, and decide not to think it's weird, but accept that it's God's will. That's what the theme of that Bible study will be.

“A perverse man spreads strife, and a slanderer separates intimate friends.” - Proverbs 16:28

It is ONLY a perverted person who spreads strife; a person who loves God seeks peace and pursues it. Slander is speech that meets two conditions: 1) it harms the reputation of another person, and 2) it is not true. Someone who says things about you that hurt your reputation and are not true is NOT your friend. Don't let him separate you from your true friends, and especially from your best friend – God.

“He who conceals a transgression seeks love, but he who repeats a matter separates intimate friends.” - Proverbs 17:9

A real friend doesn't tell everyone every time you do something bad. There is a time to deal with some sins publicly, but sometimes it's the right thing to do to conceal it in order to save the reputation of your friend. Someone who tells every bad thing YOU'VE ever done can separate close friends, if the friends allow it to separate them. Notice that this person doesn't go around telling everyone about all of the sins that HE'S committed.

“A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.” - Proverbs 17:17

A true friend loves you all of the time. You need to do a word study in the Bible on the best and highest kind of love: agape love – the kind of love that God has for all of us, and the kind of love with which we should love each other, and with which we CAN love each other, with God's help. This kind of love is a CHOICE, and it doesn't depend on emotion, or how the other person is acting. You always love them, no matter what. You may have to back away from them if they are pulling you into a lifestyle of sin, but you still love them, and you show it if and when you can, and you keep on praying for them. False friends run away when trouble comes, but a true friend is always there for you, even in adversity.

“A man of too many friends comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” - Proverbs 18:24

A person with a lot of false friends comes to ruin. There is such a person as a true friend, who sticks closer to you even than some brothers, who aren't true friends.

“Wealth adds many friends, but a poor man is separated from his friend.” - Proverbs 19:4

If you're rich, then there will be lots of people who want for you to believe that they're you're friends, and act like your friends. Be sober-minded, and only trust people as much as they prove that they can be trusted. Don't withhold a measure of trust from one who has proven that he is trustworthy. Always be willing to lose a friend in order to obey God. If you're poor, then you may not have the money to get to see your friend, because of distance or whatever.

“Many will seek the favor of a generous man, and every man is a friend to him who gives gifts.” - Proverbs 19:6

You don't have to be rich to be generous. Use earthly wealth to gain friends for yourself, so that you can influence them for God (Luke 16).

“All the brothers of a poor man hate him; how much more do his friends abandon him! He pursues them with words, but they are gone.” - Proverbs 19:7

True friends stick with you, whether you're rich or poor. If you're a true friend, then you stick with your true friends, whether they're rich or poor.

“He who loves purity of heart and whose speech is gracious, the king is his friend.” - Proverbs 22:11

If you choose to make sure that your heart is pure with God's help, and if you speak as God wants for you to speak with God's help, then God will elevate you to high places and you will speak to people who are in high positions. When you get to speak to those people, always use those times as opportunities to glorify God, and never compromise on speaking His words, even if it means you don't get more opportunities to speak to those people.

“Oil and perfume make the heart glad, so a man's counsel is sweet to his friend.” - Proverbs 27:9

The counsel of a friend or someone you think is a friend sounds good. Make sure that it's wise counsel. You can only know whether it's wise by comparing it to God's Word.

“Do not forsake your own friend or your father's friend, and do not go to your brother's house in the day of your calamity; better is a neighbor who is near than a brother far away.” - Proverbs 27:10

If you have a true friend, or your father has a true friend, then never forsake (utterly abandon) that friend. Carry on those connections from generation to generation. Continue building a network of warriors for God.

“He who blesses his friend with a loud voice early in the morning, it will reckoned a curse to him.” - Proverbs 27:14

No one who is in their right mind wants to anyone to be speaking loudly when they first wake up. Speak the way that you want to be spoken to. The way that we say things is just as important as what we say.

“Say to wisdom, 'You are my sister,' and call understanding your intimate friend;” - Proverbs 7:4

We all need godly wisdom, knowledge, and understanding. Even though they're not people – they are things and are obviously personified here – they can be like true friends to us, and we should value them just as we should value true friends.

“And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, 'And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,' and he was called the friend of God.” - James 2:23

If you read and study Holy Scripture, then you will find out that Abraham proved that he believed God by his obedience – in other words, by his good works. God credited it to him as righteousness. God considered Abraham righteous because Abraham believed – trusted – God. When we do what God tells us to do, then we prove that we trust God. When we disobey Him, then we are proving that we are not trusting Him at that time. We're saying by our actions, “God, I don't believe that Your way is the best way. There's another way that I want to do this, and I think it's better.” Abraham's good works didn't save him, of course – we who are Christians know that. But his good works proved that he had that saving faith – that he trusted God, and believed what God said. Why would we believe another person instead of God? Why would we let another person's opinion of us be a reason to sin against God? They are only human. They are not as smart as God, as wise as God – they're not omniscient (all-knowing), omnipotent (all-powerful), of the Supreme Judge over all of us. They're humans – mere mortals; they're going to die one day and face judgment before God, just like we are. Who are they to tell us what we should and shouldn't do? Whatever it may cost, we should obey God rather than man. Abraham almost always did, and he was, and is, called the friend of God. God wants to be the best friend to you that you could ever have, and He will be, if you'll let him, by trying your best with His help to live in obedience to Him. It's an honor and a privilege to have God as your best friend. But it's also an honor for you to live in such a way that God calls you His friend – for Him to say that YOU are a friend to HIM. And God revealed His plans to Abraham and told Abraham what He was going to do before He did it, because Abraham was a friend of God.

“You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” - James 4:4

There's a spiritual war going on all over the world, whether we like it or not, and friendship with the world is hostility toward God. Think military hostilities, in a war against God that you can't win. If you want the “peace” that the world gives, which is merely the absence of conflict, and only on the surface, because the conflict is still always there just beneath the surface, then you're fighting a losing battle and working for something that you'll never be able to achieve. On the other hand, friendship with God means that the world will be hostile toward you. But the weapons of our warfare are things such as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23); and being strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might, putting on truth, righteousness, the preparation of the Gospel of peace, faith, salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, with all prayer and petition praying at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, being on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints (Ephesians 6:10-18). “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.” - 2 Corinthians 10:3-5.