Choose Your Friends Carefully

or those of you who have really entered into a true Spirit-filled, full surrendered walk with the Lord where He is now leading and directing your life in the direction that He wants it to go in - one of the first things that you will find happening is that God will start to prune out the people that He does not want in your life and start to bring in the people that He does want in your life.

As you will see in the Scripture verses I will list below, the Bible tells us to choose our friends very carefully in this life.

These verses will tell us that he who walks with wise people will become wise himself, but that he who keeps company with fools will he himself be destroyed. The Bible tells us that we are not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers, that we are to stay away from people who cause divisions and offenses, and to withdraw from every brother who walks disorderly.

This does not mean that we cannot work with the lost, the downtrodden and the people who need to find God and His message of eternal salvation. When Jesus came to our earth in the flesh, He always went after the sinners and the outcasts. But when Jesus went after these sinners, it was always for the express purpose of getting them saved and cleaned up.

Jesus did not chase after everyone. He ripped on the Pharisees and many of the high-ranking Jewish leaders. Some people are open to be helped - others are not. The Bible tells us to stay away from people who are considered to be "dogs" and to beware of people who are "evil workers."

One of the first things that God will do with your life once you come into a full surrender with Him is to start to set some boundary lines. He will now decide the path that you will now follow in Him. He will now be leading you into the specific jobs that He will want you to have. If you are single and have not married yet, He will lead you to the mate that He will want you to marry if it is in His will for your life that you get married.

And once those boundary lines start to go up - one of the first things that God will do is decide who is going to be coming into those boundary lines and who will be going out. In other words, God will be deciding who your true friends are going to be in this life and who will not.

The main reason God will be helping you to choose who your true friends are going to be in this life is because His ultimate and highest aim for you is to transform and sanctify you. In other words - He wants you to spiritually grow and mature in your walk with Him.

The Bible tells us that we are transformed by the renewing of our minds. God’s ultimate aim for us is our sanctification - where He starts to begin to transform us into the express image of His Son Jesus Christ.

The main reason that God will start to take out the friends in your life that He does not want you to have is because some of these people may be negative influences in your life. They may not be open to growing and maturing in the Lord like you will be, and all they will do is try and hold you back when you start your own spiritual journey and growth in the Lord. They will start criticizing and making fun of you and all they will end up doing is stunting your growth in the Lord.

God will not be putting up with this, and He will thus be taking all of these bad influences out of your life very early on once you enter into this full surrendered walk with Him. For those of you who are married and have children - it is the same thing when you do not want your children hanging out with other children who you know would be a bad and negative influence on your child.

You know that if your children start hanging out with the wrong type of crowd, they can become very easily corrupted in a very short period of time. As a result, you will become very protective on who your children will be choosing to be their friends once they become old enough to start choosing who their friends are going to be.

It is the exact same way with God the Father! This is why God will be moving very early on to take out these negative influences in your life. Once this starts to happen, you have to go with the program or you could cause God to start pulling back on you. And once that starts to happen, you could start to backslide and everything could start to shut down.

If you will allow God to prune out the people that He does not want you to have in your life - then what He will start to do is to bring in the people that He will want to have in your life. I call these types of friends "God-friends." These people will be other godly, Spirit-filled Christians who are truly walking in good stead with the Lord and they will now be the people that He will want you to share your walk with!

As you will see in the Scripture verses listed below - you will need other good solid Christian friends in your life to help you grow in the Lord. The Bible tells us that we can only "know in part." No one has all of the answers to everything. By sharing your walk with other good solid Christian friends, you can each help each other out in your pursuit of the knowledge and ways of God.

You will know some things about God they may not know and they will know some things that you may not know. You thus are able to contribute to each other's storehouse of knowledge in the Lord.

One of the verses listed below state that two friends can help sharpen each other up like "iron sharpens iron." Just like one piece of iron can make the other piece of iron extremely sharp by rubbing up against it - two solid Christian friends can also have the same type of positive effect on one another by sharing their own personal walks in the Lord with one other.

By having other good solid Christian friends to share your journey with - you will literally accelerate your spiritual growth and development in the Lord because you will have more than one source in which to feed and learn from.  You will be learning about God from your own personal adventures and experiences with Him - but you will also be learning more about God from your other friends’ personal journey and experiences with Him.

How many of these types of God-friends can you expect God to bring in? Only God will be able to answer that for each and every one of you. Some may only get one or two to start off with, others may get 5 or 10. Let God make the decision as to how many and when they will be brought into your life.

What I have learned is that it is not the quantity or amount that comes in - it is the quality. You are much better off having just one or two good, solid quality friends as versus 10 or 15 that are not as good quality friends as the one or two may be.

Every Christian is operating at different levels of spiritual development with the Lord. God knows best as to who would be best suited for you at the level of spiritual development that you are currently operating at with Him. When God does bring in these types of special God-friends to share your journey with - they will be real treasures! These God-friendships will be anointed by God Himself due to the quality feedings and interaction that will occur in them.

Sadly, what you will find out very early on, is just because someone may be a saved and born again Christian does not mean this person has their act together in the Lord. Some people have become too judgmental and too critical in their walks with the Lord. Some have become too arrogant and pompous, thinking that they have all the answers to everything. They will tend to look down on anyone else who is not operating at the knowledge levels they are operating at.

Some have become so flakey in their walks with the Lord, that they have lost touch with reality and you won't be able to connect with any of them. God knows best as to who will be best suited for you at your current level of spiritual development with Him - so let Him guide you to the ones that He will want you to connect with.

I have seen God do this so many times for others, that I literally consider it a miraculous piece of work - especially as to how He gets you to meet some of these people in the first place. Some of these chess moves are quite incredible, as most of these people will be total strangers to you until God moves in to match the two of you up.

The other thing that could occur besides God matching you up with total strangers is that He may move on someone else you know, but that you are not particular good friends with. That person then gets saved and plugged in, and then he or she finds out that you too are saved and plugged in - and now a good God-friendship can start to build up as you now have something in common with one another to start to build a good solid friendship with.

This could be another member in your family, someone that you may work with, a friend who you may have known from your past, someone you may see at church from time to time but never really talked with, or someone you may meet on the internet through a chat room. The possibilities are endless as to where these people may come from.

These God-friends can come from anywhere and at anytime - so keep your radars up - as you never know when God may move to bring one of them into your life.

Now I’ll go to the actual Scripture verses confirming all of the above for you.

1.  Choose Your Friends Carefully

This first verse is the one that will tell us to choose our friends very carefully in this life. This verse should literally be burned into your memory banks so that you never ever forget this basic fundamental command from the Lord! Here it is:

"The righteous should CHOOSE HIS FRIENDS CAREFULLY, for the way of the wicked leads them astray." (Proverbs 12:26)

Notice this verse is specifically telling us that if we do not choose our friends very carefully in this life, that we could end up choosing the wrong type of people to become friends with and they can then end up leading us astray from God and with what He wants to do with our lives. Many of God's people have lost their calls in Him because they chose to hang out with the wrong type of people or the wrong crowd.

2.  Benefits of Choosing Good God-Friends

Here are six very interesting verses showing you why God does want you to have other good solid Christian friends to share your walk with.

These six verses will show you that there is safety in the multitude of counselors, that plans can go awry without having other people to hash things out with, that war is waged by wise counsel with others, that learning is increased by listening to wise counsel, and that if you cease to listen to wise counsel - that you will start to stray from being able to acquire more knowledge in God.

• "Where there is no counsel, the people fall; but in the multitude of counselors there is safety." (Proverbs 11:14)
   
• "A wise man is strong, yes, a man of knowledge increases strength; for by wise counsel you will wage your own war, and in a multitude of counselors there is safety." (Proverbs 24:5)
   
• "Every purpose is established by counsel; by wise counsel wage war." (Proverbs 20:18)
   
• "Without counsel, plans go awry, but in the multitude of counselors they are established." (Proverbs 15:22)
   
• "Listen to counsel and receive instruction, that you may be wise in your latter days." (Proverbs 19:20)
   
• "Cease listening to instruction, my son, and you will stray from the words of knowledge." (Proverbs 19:27)
  

Once you turn the reigns of your life over to God for Him to fully handle, He will now make sure that you get matched up with the right kind of people that you can become true God-friends with.

3.  As Iron Sharpens Iron

This next verse is extremely fascinating as it tells us that two friends can help sharpen each other up as iron sharpens iron. A true God-friend can help keep you sharp in the Spirit, let you know when you are getting too far off track, help you get through and make sense of some of the downswings that can occur in your walk, confirm and help bear witness when you are on the right track, give you pep talks when needed, and help keep you in the game when you start to get too mad and too frustrated when things do not go your way.

You each serve to help keep each other up in the Lord so that you both can continue to stay on the straight and narrow road that God now has you set up on. You can also help each other out if one starts to be tempted to do something they should not be engaging in. Here is the verse:

"As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend." (Proverbs 27:17)

A true God-friend will always be honest and straight forward with you. You cannot help keep each other up and sharp in the Lord unless you are both willing to be totally honest with one another.

4. Do Not Be Unequally Yoked With Unbelievers

There is one verse in particular that tells us that "evil company corrupts good habits." This verse perfectly shows us what can happen to any of your children if they start hanging out with the wrong type of people.

Here are 7 good verses telling us to stay on our side of the fence, and to stay away from all of the bad apples who have no desire for God or anything that He stands for.

• "Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God." (2 Corinthians 6:14)
   
• "He who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will be destroyed." (Proverbs 13:20)
   
• "A scoffer seeks wisdom and does not find it, but knowledge is easy to him who understands. Go from the presence of a foolish man, when you do not perceive in him the lips of knowledge." (Proverbs 14:6)
   
• "Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers ..." (Philippians 3:2)
   
• "But we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw from every brother who walks disorderly and not according to the tradition which he received from us." (2 Thessalonians 3:6)
   
• "Now I urge you, brethren, note those who cause divisions and offenses, contrary to the doctrine which you have learned, and avoid them. For those who are such do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly, and by smooth words and flattering speech deceive the hearts of the simple." (Romans 16:17)
   
• "Do not be deceived: "Evil company corrupts good habits." Awake to righteousness, and do not sin; for some do not have the knowledge of God." (1 Corinthians 15:33)

All of these verses are giving us major warnings that we are to stay away from all of the bad apples in this life who will do nothing but try and bring us down to their lower way of living in this life. Many Christians have had their lives totally ruined and destroyed as a result of marrying the wrong people or choosing the wrong kinds of friends to hang out with.

Conclusion

Just as God saw fit to create Eve for Adam in the Garden of Eden when He first created the first man - God still places an extremely high value on personal friendships, and He will make sure to bring the right people and the right number of people in your life so that you can each help each other out to go farther and fly higher in the Lord.

When Jesus first started to send the 12 apostles out to walk with His anointing, He would always send them out two-by-two.

Once you enter into a real supernatural walk with the Lord, you will go nuts if you do not have someone to share your walk with. There are simply too many good God things that will start to happen in your life and you will need others to talk with, to vent with, to share with, to learn from one another and to help keep each other on track.

I believe Jesus was giving us a major piece of revelation when He started sending the apostles out two-by-two instead of by themselves.

For those of you who have not been matched up with a good God-friend at this time - just go to God the Father in prayer and ask Him to bring you the right friend that would be best suited for you at your present level of spiritual development in Him.

Unless God is keeping you all to Himself for a reason and a season, there is no reason that God will not want to move on this request to bring you a special God-friend in order to help accelerate your spiritual growth in Him. If God did it for Adam in the Garden of Eden, then there is no reason that He would not want to do it for you.

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Scripture taken from New King James Version.
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Copyright © 2005-2008 by Michael Bradley.


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