Sunday, March 8, 2015

Vertical Friendships - March 8, 2015







The foundation for any genuine, long-lasting relationship is biblical love; this love is often confused with emotion. Love will bring about emotion and emotional caring;  love is important and we all need to feel it because God has designed us way, . . . but true biblical love is not and never should be based on emotion.

Biblical love is based on God's grace; His unmerited favor. In other words, God in His own heart decided to that He wanted the very best of us. He choose to care for us as Rom. 5:8, says "when we were still in our sins." God choose to love us, not based upon some goodness or trait He liked in us, but because He cared for our well being and future. Thus, God's grace is an expression of his will....to love us, because He choose to. Any true lasting relationship must be based on grace.

God made us to need one another. When we fail in our relationship and fail to exercise biblical grace and love one to another we become lonely and loneliness is a terrible condition.

There is EMOTIONAL loneliness that occurs when we lose connection with the true essence of grace. This is a loneliness that can occur in the midst of a crowd. This is the most common type of loneliness. It occurs when we feel we have no one to share our deepest concerns, no one who truly understands our struggles or our joys.

I have often allowed the devil of emotional loneliness to lead me to some really depressing situations with disastrous outcomes. The solution to the problem of loneliness is friendship. All human beings are designed  with both a need and craving for friendship. We need someone who will rejoice with us or cry with us, someone who will comfort us when we crawl through valleys of despair or laugh with us on the mountaintops of happiness.

We need someone who is an ever present companion through the ins and outs of the daily grind, someone we can always count on. In fact, friendships can be our most valuable possessions. The poet, Emily Dickenson, wrote "My friends are my estate."

Every human being needs friendships on two different levels.

We need HORIZONTAL (Earthly) friendships. We need deep meaningful connections with other people. The proverb says, "A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly." (Prov. 18:24)
In other words, we have to diligently work on building long lasting and endearing friendships. Do you work on building friendships with others or let it happen; go with the flow and then just walk away telling ourselves that an individual was in our lives for a season?

True friendship can never be one sided. Too many of us,  are looking for friends who will help them, meet their need, be a friend to them, listen to their problems, be sympathetic and love them. They are seeking a selfish friendship in which they receive friendship....but often this is a one-sided affair. I know I am  a good friend but I am often guilty of looking for someone to validate me.

People do not often find the friends they want and remain lonely and wonder why? The KEY is in this verse. To have friends we must show ourselves to be friendly. Are your friendships one-sided? Can you look at your shortcomings in the situation? To find true friends we must UNSELFISHLY give ourselves to others.

Let me emphasize the that true friendship is not based on getting, but giving. Many people, (me)  have a hard time finding true friendship because they are looking for what someone can do for them. They want people to love and care for them....and they fail because that is not the basis of true friendship. True friendship is like God’s grace....and His love it is giving unmerited favor to someone and first and foremost wanting to meet their need, to help them, to comfort them.

In giving friendship it is returned. The satisfaction of friendship...is in being a friend to others. .

We need a VERTICAL friendship. The basis of any sound lasting relationship begins with a relationship with our Creator and God. The second part of our verse says, "There is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother." That friend is Jesus Christ. Unless you have a personal friendship with Jesus, you'll never escape loneliness. Exodus 33:11 says,

"And the LORD spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend."
James 2:23 says, "And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God."

Jesus said to His disciples in John 15:15, " Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you."



No comments:

Post a Comment