Point of View:
So I have changed my mind, I want to break up this study into three parts! Lol. Today’s devotional will be about not quitting on your friends that are making bad choices, but being there for them and showing them the tough love that they need. I want to add this topic into the mix because I want to be very clear about only distancing yourself from a friend if you can't be around them without sinning or being tempted into sin. You see, I think that a lot of us would rather just ignore our friends bad choices/actions and avoid the confrontation that may come with saying something instead of just speaking up and maybe facing a tough conversation. It’s like we would rather just take the easy way out and let our friends slip away into drugs, gossip, lust and other things just because we are to lazy or scared of what might happen. That’s not right, and definitely not how we are called to act as Christians (2 Tim. 2:24). If we love our friends we should want the best for them, right? So then why do we let them do things that are bad/wrong? You see, laziness or being scared of confrontation is not a reason that we should be ending friendships! Instead of quitting we should be encouraging, praying, confronting and searching the scriptures for wisdom on how to specifically love on our friends that are being tough to love. Don’t quit on your friends, after all you wouldn’t want them to quit on you, right?
The Challenge:
I challenge you to remember some words my mama once said; “Sometimes the ones who are hardest to love need that love the most”. Let's not give up on our friends who are choosing not to focus on God right now, but show them love no-matter what their attitude is like or what they say. If you can stand strong and encourage your friends in their faith, keep on doing so, If you can't, and feel the need to adopt there lifestyle or sin to fit in, Thursday's devotional will be geared towards you. Pray for your friends either way and remember that through Christ, all things are possible!
Prayer Points:
• Thank God for giving us the friends we have.
• Ask for forgiveness if your friends are leading you to sin. We can’t go blaming it on them, we made the choice to act upon it.
• Pray that you would be able to find a friend that can encourage, pray and confront you as you strive to be holy. We all need that type of friend in our life!
The Word:
And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient
- 2 Timothy 2:24
6 “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. 7 Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to stumble! Such things must come, but woe to the person through whom they come! 8 If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire. 9 And if your eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.
- Mathew 18: 6-9
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