Friends

When I was a child, my parents stressed the importance of having the right friends.

My youth pastor preached and taught on a consistent basis the importance of having the right friends.

The older I have become, I have realized that those were some of the most important lessons and some of the best instruction, I have ever received. Having the right friends is one of the best things you can do for your life.

As a child, as a teenager, I really didn’t understand the importance of having right friends. But as I graduated high school and got out on my own, I started to see a big difference between right friends and wrong friends. When you are fresh out of high school and have your whole life ahead of you, you will be able to see your life’s direction through the friends you surround yourself with.

I look at my own life and I’m sad to say that I was a wrong friend at different points in my life. I honestly believe some of my words and actions caused some to turn from Christ. You see, everything you do in your life should point your friends to Christ. The older I get, I want to be that right friend to my friends. I want to make sure I stay surrounded by right friends.

The simple difference between right and wrong friends in the Christian life is this, a right friend will encourage you to do right and serve God while the wrong friend is the opposite in getting you to do wrong and go against God and His Word.

It bothers me to see, good kids surround themselves with wrong friends because they are the cool kids, the popular kids! They want to be accepted by the worldly crowd and soon they are that wrong friend to the next good kid.

I’m a firm believer that a good kid will not make a bad kid good. A bad kid will make a good kid bad. The Bible says “a little leaven, leaventh the whole lump.” Pour a drop of poison in a cup of water and that poison spreads and contaminates the water. Pour a drop of water into a cup of poison and what do you get? A cup of water? No! You have a cup of poison still!

That worldly kid, that worldly young adult is not a good influence to you if you are trying to serve God. Surround yourself with friends that are serving God, that want to do right, that obey the rules, that obey the Bible. Have friends that encourage you to pray and read your Bible and go soul winning.

Find a right friend. Be a right friend.