True Friendships

 

By Jill Briscoe

We can learn from the Bible what strengthens friendships and what kills them. For example, taking offense easily kills friendship. Amy Carmichael, in her little booklet If, says, “If I take offense easily–if I am content to continue in a cool unfriendliness though friendship be possible, then I know nothing of Calvary love.” Again Amy says, “If I do not give a friend the benefit of the doubt but put the worst construction instead of the best on what is said or done, then I know nothing of Calvary love.” And, “If I can hurt another by speaking faithfully without much preparation of spirit and without hurting myself far more than I hurt that other, then I know nothing of Calvary love.”

Good forgivers make good friends too. This is not contradicting what I have said about saying things that need to be said. Remember, “faithful are the wounds of a friend” (Prov. 27:6, KJV). But when necessary hard things are said, afterward forgiveness is needed to heal the rough edges of those painful conversations. Sometimes we even have to forgive our friends for being faithful friends and telling us the truth!

David had two good friends, Jonathan and Nathan. Jonathan loved David to death. In Jonathan’s eyes, David could do no wrong. We all need that sort of friend. Nathan loved David too. But when David did something wrong, Nathan called him on it! We need a “Nathan” too.

Encouragement isn’t always “soft.” I well remember a great friend of mine listening to my litany of woes and then saying firmly but kindly, “Have a good cry, then wash your face, get up, and get on with it.” It worked. The word “encourage” means to “put courage into.” She surely put it into me!

We also need to be a Jonathan and a Nathan for others, as well as looking for those types of friends for ourselves. In fact, if we try to offer these two elements of friendship we will probably find the real friends we are looking for. In other words, be a friend and you will find a friend!

A friend loves at all times, and it is this element of “Calvary love,” as Amy Carmichael puts it, that helps us listen to our friends’ loving encouragement and act on it. Paul said, “I have you in my heart” (Phil. 1:7) and then proceeded to correct and rebuke his friends. When you know someone loves you and has you in their heart, you can hear their words of correction. It’s called “speaking the truth in love” (Eph. 4:15) or sometimes we call it “leveling in love” but when it happens you aren’t “leveled.”

Remember this bit of advice...Real friendship needs to be based on biblical principles, and it also needs to be practical. For example, we can offer words of encouragement but we also need to think of concrete ways to help. It’s more than talk–it’s offering a meal if your friend is sick, a ride in your car if she needs it, help with her kids if she is exhausted and needs a break. Sometimes your help will be verbal. As Ecclesiastes warns, however, there is “a time to be silent and a time to speak” (3:7).

A friend of mine took a risk on our friendship by talking to me about a problem that had arisen. First (she told me afterward), she fasted and prayed about whether to talk to me at all. That is a good start. Second she told me she decided she would not say anything more than she had to say. The old saying, “The less said, the sooner mended” is a very sound principle! My friend did it right, and said it right, and I was pleased to respond to her. What does “Calvary love” mean to you? What are some ways you can make this a reality in your friendships?

The Cost

excerpts from MacArthur's "The Starting Principle of Discipleship" . . . . . . . .

If you want to follow Christ, you want to be a Christian, do you?  Here’s the message.  Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Him. 

Do you hear that in the contemporary gospel?  Do you ever hear that?  Do you ever hear that in a message given by a television preacher or an evangelist?  Do you ever hear anybody say that?  Do you ever hear anybody stand up in a crowd and say, “If you want to become a Christian, slay yourself, deny yourself all the things that yourself longs for and wants and hopes for, be willing to die and slavishly submit in obedience to Jesus Christ”?  That doesn’t sell.  That’s not smart marketing.  It just happens to be the truth. 

So what do you want to do?  Get someone artificially converted?  That’s the popular way.  Give people the illusion they’re saved when they’re not so that some day when they face Christ they’re going to say, “Lord, Lord,” and He’s going to say, “Depart from Me, I never knew you.”  The gospel has to be the gospel.  You want to follow Me then?  The principle is, it’s the end of you if you want to follow Me.  It’s the end of you.  You don’t exist anymore.  Paul said it this way.  “For to me to live is - ” what? “ - Christ and to die is - ”  I’ve learned how to be abased and how to abound.  I’ve learned how to have things and not have things.  It doesn’t matter.  If I live I live to the Lord.  If I die I die unto the Lord.  What’s the difference? I’m the Lord’s.”  That’s the attitude. 

Men want glory.  They want health.  They want wealth.  They want happiness.  They want all their felt needs met, all their human little itches scratched.  They want a painless life.  They want the crown without the cross.  They want the gain without the pain.  That’s how people think.  That’s not God’s interest.  The author of our salvation, according to Hebrews 2:10, was made perfect through suffering, and so are we as well taken through the crucible of suffering.  And where we suffer, first of all, is in the death of all hopes, all ambitions, all desires, all longings, all needs that are human.  That’s the point.

So you want to be a Christian, it’s not easy.  You’d think it was easy.  Today, if you want to be a Christian, pray these little words.  Pray this little prayer, and you’ll be a Christian.  It’s not easy to be a Christian.  Let me show you some things.

Matthew 7:13.  This is, again, the teaching of our Lord.  Matthew 7:13, Sermon on the Mount, familiar words, verse 13, “Enter by the narrow gate.”  First of all, become a Christian, you’re going through a narrow gate.  The idea of narrow here means “constricted.”  I mean, it’s one of those things that you have to kind of go through.  It’s very, very tight.  You can’t carry anything through it.  You come through with nothing.  “There is a wide gate, but it leads to destruction.”

There’s a wide religious gate, and people are going on with all their baggage, and all their self needs, and all their self esteem, and all their desire for fulfillment and self satisfaction, and all of that.  They’re going on there, but it doesn’t go to heaven, it says “heaven” but ends up in hell.  And many go that way.

But there is also, verse 14, this very small, narrow gate and it leads to eternal life, but notice this, “Few are those who find it.”  And the idea is it’s hard to find.  And I agree that it’s hard to find.  It’s especially hard to find today.  You can go to church, after church, after church, after church, after church and never find it.  It’s a very narrow gate. 

It’s hard to find and it’s hard to get through.  Why?  Why is it so hard to find and why is it so hard to get through  Answer, because it’s so hard to deny yourself.  So hard.  That’s the reigning reality in human fallenness, that man is the master of his own soul, the captain of his own faith, that man is the monarch of his own world, that man is king and to say he has to slay himself, deny himself, that’s too much to swallow.  You preach a gospel that doesn’t include that and people will flock around to get out of hell into heaven.  You start preaching the true gospel that calls for total and absolute self-denial, the recognition that you have nothing of which you are worthy, nothing of which you can be commended, nothing in you that needs to be salvaged.  But rather you’re willing to slay everything you are, all your hopes, dreams, ambitions for the sake of the pearl, for the sake of Christ and you’re coming on God’s terms.  That’s not easy.  It’s hard, first of all, to find that truth and it’s even harder once you’ve heard it to submit to it because man worships himself.  He’s his own god. 

What we need to be telling people is not “come to Christ and you’ll feel better about yourself,” is not “Jesus wants to meet whatever your needs are.”  Jesus doesn’t want to meet your needs, your worldly, earthly, human needs.  He wants you to be willing to say, “I will abandon all the things I think I need for the sake of Christ.”

And then Jesus told those two parables in Matthew 13:44-46.   He said there was a man who found a treasure hidden in a field and he saw the value of the treasure and he sold everything for the treasure.  Then he said there was a pearl of great price, that the man found the pearl of great price, he sold everything to get the pearl.  It’s the selling everything that is the essence of salvation.  It’s I give up everything, I deny myself, I offer my life both in terms of death, if need be, and in terms of obedience in life.  This is the message of the gospel.  So when you go to preach the gospel, that’s what you have to say. 

Now, you say, “But people aren’t going to buy that.”  Well wait a minute, people aren’t going to buy that, of course not, unless the Spirit of God is working in their hearts, right?  Unless the Spirit of God is doing the work of conviction, and the Spirit of God is awakening the dead heart, and the Spirit of God is generating faith, and then that’s the only true message that connected with the work of the Spirit will produce true salvation.  Don’t reinvent the gospel to suit you.  That’s what’s being done today.