What Does Friendship Really Mean?

Friendships are bonds between two or more people who want to engage with one another. It involves having mutual interest in each other’s thoughts, feelings and experiences. Friendships work on reciprocity of trust, respect, emotional support and admiration.

True friendship is so much more than pressing a friend button on a social media site. While those friends usually have the same interests or thoughts, they generally are not the deeper emotional relationships that come from experiencing life together.

Imagine if the four men who carried their paralyzed friend to Christ would have just hit the like button when he posted a picture of his condition and commented that they were praying for him. The story would have been much different.

Real frienship takes action. Real frienship will seek out solutions until they are found. Real friends will stick with you until you are unstuck. Real friends carry you to Jesus.

These friends were not concerned with what others thought of them as they walked through the streets, climbed on top of a house and tore off the roof. They were driven by their faith that Jesus would heal their friend and He did.

How determined are you to serve your friends? Are you willing to go out of your way, look foolish and do whatever it takes to help them? I’m sure that the man’s friends prayed for him, but they didn’t let their devotion end there. They lived out and shared their faith with him.

It wasn’t the paralyzed man’s faith but that of his friends that impressed Jesus. Jesus responded to their act of faith and healed the man. For better or worse, our faith affects others. We cannot make another person a Christian, but we can do much through our words, actions and love to give him or her a chance to respond.

Look for opportunities to bring your friends to Christ; that’s real friendship.

Be Intentional about living out your faith.

Praises & Prayers

Father, thank you for giving me true friends. Those who have shown me through their own lives what real friendship is all about. Thank you for opportunities to do the same for others. I pray we will not only pray for our friends, but serve and help then in every and any way we can to lead them to You. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Messages from His Word

Proverbs 18:24 (VOICE)

Someone with many so-called friends may end up friendless, but a true friend is closer than a brother.