Find out who your friends are.

Proverbs 13:20

He who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.

How often do we take into account the people that we hang around with? Most of us who grow up in small town usually keep the same friends that we have had since we were kids. Some of us develop and lose friends frequently the older that we get. But really how often do we look at the people around us to see if they are “wise”, good people to be spending our time with.

What is a good way to figure out if someone is a good friend to be hanging around with? Well, is the person a Christian? Do they hold to the same values that you hold to? If not, when you try to do something that is right and they disagree with you there is going to be friction there. Do they treat you with respect all the time? If they don’t treat you with respect then they probably aren’t much of a friend to be hanging around with because their lack of respect just shows their lack of compassion for you. What should we do if we really take inventory of our friends and realize that they are really not that “wise” of people? Should we continue to hang out with them? Well this is a tough one that I personally struggled with. I found myself hanging around with people who weren’t living their lives the right way and I struggled with the question, is hanging out with them wrong? Or should I continue to hang out with them and try to be a witness to them? This is actually something I still struggle with now because is don’t really have any friends that don’t go to church, and I feel like we should be looking to have relationships with people who aren’t in church so that we can have an influence on them. Statistics show that most people will come to church if someone they “know” invites them. That means that we have to have some sort of a relationship with these people for them to want to come and worship the God that we worship.

If we look at Jesus life we will see that that he was actually hated because of the people that he associated himself with. He was called a “friend of sinner”. He went out of his way to talk to people that were not socially acceptable. He hung out with tax collectors. But the interesting thing about Jesus associating with these people is that he never did it on their terms. He always did it with a goal in mind or a reason behind it. He didn’t go and hang out with the tax collectors while they were out charging other people ridiculous taxes, instead he hung out with them in private where he could get down to the nitty gritty about their lives, and where they were out with God.

In writing this I don’t want to come off as saying “If any of your friends aren’t saved and in church every Sunday then you don’t need to hang out with them.” No, that’s not what I am trying to say. I think it is good for us to have friends who need Christ, but just be careful that you aren’t hanging out with them while they are doing questionable things (drinking, partying, ect.) But I do think that it is important for us to have a close group of friends who are strong Christians who are going to be willing to call us out and tell us the truth. I want a close friend that I can confide in and tell them what is going on in my life that I am struggling with. I believe that is where that associating with the “wise” comes into play.