Every
day we are forced to make choices whether we want to or
not. Regardless of a person's background such as education, nationality, riches or
poverty, we all have to make daily choices. If
you are above the age of 18, you have known for a time now that there are bad choices
and good choices. What is important is that we make
good choices as often as we can, if we don't, if we choose
to make bad choices, there are unhappy consequences in our
lives. Choosing
one's friends brings about quick results -
James
4:4-5 "You
adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward
GOD?
Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an
enemy of GOD.
Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the SPIRIT
HE caused to live in us envies intensely?" |
Some
of those words in James sound a bit ruff, at first, hard to accept or agree with.
When it comes to the Word of GOD,
we are the students and the Word is our Teacher. A wise
person not only reads GOD'S Word
but pays close attention to the lessons it teaches. GOD
gives us choices, we can make friends who do not care for GOD
or HIS ways, even those who hate GOD
(anyone who does not love HIM or believe in JESUS
- John 3:16).
Unsaved
friends are children of the devil. Ouch! It is true, and their personal life
goals are the opposite of the ones you live by today. Think about if for a minute, before you put your
faith in JESUS, you were just like them. 1
Peter 4:3-4 "For
you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to
do—living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry.
They think it strange that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of
dissipation, and they heap abuse on you." |
Every
Believer should have one or two unsaved friends in order to have someone to share the
gospel of JESUS CHRIST
with and demonstrate the benefits of being a child of GOD by
their personal lifestyle.
That being said, we should never act like them or involve ourselves in their sins.
One Believer told me he would hang around all his old friends who would get together and
smoke marijuana together. This man had been a team member for years, now he sat in
that same room and would turn down the drug as it passed him. After an hour or more he would
breathe enough second hand smoke he would be as stoned as everyone else.
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