General thoughts: Friendship.

Yesterday, I was preparing for a talk that I was doing at youth in the evening. The talk was entitled Real or Fake and was taking a look at Biblical viewpoints on things and worldly viewpoints.

1 John 5:9 says...

 We believe people when they say something is true. But what God says is more important, and he has told us the truth about his son.

Often we can get caught up in worldly beliefs and this can affect all sorts of areas of our lives. For my part in the talk I have been asked to talk about friendships and popularity, which for young people can be a battle at times. This caused me to take a look at what real Biblical friendship is and how we as Christians can become better friends and not be swayed by the worlds view on it. 

To begin to understand this we need to take a look at one of the best biblical examples of friendship that we have, David and Jonathan.

1 Samuel 18:1-4...

 When David finished talking with Saul, Jonathan felt very close to David. He loved David as much as he loved himself. Saul kept David with him from that day on and did not let him go home to his father's house. Jonathan made an agreement with David, because he loved David as much as himself. He took off his coat and gave it to David, along with his armor, including his sword, bow and belt.

The world often tells us that our friends are here to benefit us, to help us and to love us. Friendship can often be interpreted as a one way thing. We need to assess whether our friendships are all take, take, take and whether we expect our friends to be there for us and to make us happy, without us giving anything in return. 
From the example of Jonathan and David we can see that Jonathan cared about David and loved him as much as he loved himself. They were very close and they cared about each other deeply. As there should be in all friendships, there was mutual encouragement, intercession and affection. Later on in the story, we are told that when Jonathan and Saul were killed David was very grieved so he wrote a song exclaiming how he felt at the time (2 Samuel Ch 1), this shows to some extent how much Jonathan meant to him, and how much he cared for Saul despite the way Saul acted towards him.

Going back to 1 Samuel 18-19, we see that Saul put David at the head of his army, and David achieved much success in his exploits because he trusted fully in God. You would think this would make a king happy, however Saul became bitter, jealous and scared because of Davids success, so he started trying to kill him. This is where Jonathan and David's friendship would really be tested. Jonathan was Saul's son and Saul confided in Jonathan about his thoughts and plans, as did David. So when Saul commanded Jonathan and his servants to kill David, Jonathan's loyalties were tied. What would he do? 
Because Jonathan was fond of David and there was a true love between them, he warned David of Saul's plans to kill him, and told him to hide (1 Samuel 19:1-3). This was very risky business because if Saul had found out that Jonathan was telling David (whom he probably saw as an enemy at the time) he probably would have killed him, despite him being his son. Jonathan could have also seen this situation as a big personal gain. He knew where David was hiding and he could have led Saul to David, which in turn would have led to reward. However, we see a real unselfishness which I believe can only come from love.

The world will often tell us that our own success comes before our friends success, and our friendships with them. We can see this all through society from children ditching their close friends to hang out with the "cooler kids", to businessmen stealing ideas from business partners. This is seen as acceptable, there is no loyalty and love in the relationships. Sadly this also spreads to marriage, we see men and women running off with other people when something that seems better comes along.

As Christian's we should be different though.
Jesus said in John 13:34-35...

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.

We can see here Jesus gave us a command to "Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another." This is clear and direct. Jesus loved his disciples (then and now) with all his heart. Jesus would have never had bad thoughts about people, he would have never slandered, he would have never gossiped. He was perfect. These things are not loving. I myself have struggled with them in the past and still do to some extent. They are not godly, they are worldly and we should be disciplined and avoid them.
Jesus also says "By this all men will know that you are my disciples...". Jesus is saying that if we love one another, people will know that we are followers of him. Demonstrating godly friendship speaks a lot about the church, the body of Christ. How can we demonstrate his love to us if we do not love each other?

I hope that you were challenged by reading this, I know I was in the process of writing it. Let's have good godly friendships with each other that demonstrate the love of Christ...our saviour!