Month: November 2022

Last week, we talked about the idea of true friends and why God wants us to have true friendships. The Bible has many verses about friendship and many of these highlight the importance of love. And we know that Jesus said love is the most important thing (Matthew 22:37-40), so we know how important love is in developing true friends.

But what exactly is “love” or what does it mean to be “loving”? For example, what is the difference between loving ice cream and loving another person? They are clearly not the same, but we use the same word (love) in both cases, so it’s important to define the type of love that is so important to God. We are fortunate that He provided us with lots of explanations about love in the Bible and one of my favorites is 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, which says

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, it is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

What if we substitute “true friend” for “love” in the passage above? Let’s re-read it that way together now and see if it works.

Let’s tie a couple of thoughts together from last week with this new idea of love being at the heart of true friendship. Last week we discussed the idea that if you want to have a friend, you need to be a friend. And if we now combine that with the description of love above from Corinthians, we can say that if we want to have a friend, we need to be loving. More specifically, we need to practice patience, kindness, and all the other characteristics of love.

We know that God has great things in store for us and wants to shower us with many blessings, including the blessing of true friendships. And since we know that love is the most important thing, as we continue to love God and others, true friendships (or deepening of existing relationships) will follow.

Questions

1. How did you feel about substituting “true friends” for “love” in today’s verse? Did that open your eyes to anything new?
2. We know that we can only control our actions (not the actions of other), so if we want to build more true friendships, what are some things we should do? (Hint: reread today’s scripture)
3. If building true friendships is based on things like being more patient and more kind, how can we work on these things? Can you build patience like you can build muscle? If so, how?
4. Today’s lesson says, “as we continue to love God and others, God will honor these actions and bring special friendships into our life”. Do you agree with this statement? Why or why not?

It might not seem that the Bible would be a good source of advice about friendship, but it actually has a lot to say about it. One powerful passage about friendship is from Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, which says:

Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble. Likewise, two people lying close together can keep each other warm. But how can one be warm alone? A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.

To prepare for this lesson, I looked up some stats on friendship and it seems like the consensus is that most people 3-5 true friends. As you probably already know, there is a difference between an acquaintance and a true friend. Here are some questions to determine if someone is a true friend. Do they:

• Accept you for who you are?
• Stick around in good times and bad?
• Celebrate your victories with you?
• Make time for you and are truly present when you are together?
• Encourage you to be your best?
• Tell you the truth, even if you don’t like it?
• Make you feel good when you are with them?

Even if you are fortunate enough to find even a few people who check all of those boxes, friendships can still sometimes be challenging and frustrating. But, in a way, that’s what friendships are for.

God wants us to have close friends AND He wants us to have the opportunity to grow and strengthen those friendships. If we never faced challenges in our friendships, how could we have the opportunity to deepen those relationships?

Using a sports analogy to emphasize this point, what if you were an athlete but never had the opportunity to compete against other athletes? What would be your motivation to practice and try to get better? In the same way, when we have true friends, it encourages us to work hard on those friendships, even if they become challenging and frustrating. We want to work harder to protect these relationships and, in working harder, we become better people. Our rough edges are smoothed and we become more patient & kind.

When you face challenges in relationships, consider where God may be moving and don’t necessarily assume that friendship is strained beyond repair. He might just be providing an opportunity to strengthen that relationship and take it to the next level.

Questions:

1. Do you agree that it is difficult to have more than five true friends?
2. Why do you think God wants us to have true friends in our lives?
3. Do you agree that when we encounter challenges in our closest relationships, it might be a good thing? Why or why not?
4. Do you have any examples where you or someone else you know worked on repairing a strained friendship and it turned out that friendship became much deeper?
5. What are one or two things we can do this week to either deepen a good friendship or start repairing a strained friendship?

Two weeks ago, in part 1 of True Faith, we established that we tend to put boundaries around our faith, meaning that we’re glad to “follow” God as long as we can enjoy certain comforts and avoid certain difficulties. Then, last week in Part 2, we discussed Paul’s teaching in Romans 10:17 that faith comes from hearing and reading scripture. As part of last week’s lesson, we touched on the importance of taking time to reflect on scripture, which brings us to today’s verse from Colossians 3:16 which says,

“Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom He gives.”

If you’ve ever lived through a prolonged drought, you may remember that most of the limited rain that fell during this period ran off the dry soil instead of sinking in. It takes prolonged periods of rain for the soil to soften up and allow the moisture to sink deeply.

In the same way, we need prolonged exposure to scripture for it to sink in and nourish the roots of our faith. This reflection time is the best way to receive genuine revelations about God’s path for us and how He is working in our life.

But consistently scheduling in even 15 minutes for reflection often seems like a challenge. We wake up running, jump in the shower, grab some coffee, drop the kids off, get our workday started, and go hard until we get home. Then we’re so stressed from the day that it’s all we can do to be present at kid’s activities and dinner with the family. We barely have time for an hour or two of Netflix 😊before we try to get to bed at a decent time.

But there is good news – God’s got this. He’ll bless the time you spend on scripture and multiply it. So, you really get a Faith BOGO (buy-one-get-one). Not only will we get the faith-enhancing benefit of reflecting on scripture, but our faith will be further enhanced by trusting God enough to cheerfully carve out this time.

If you are ready to give it a try, there is no wrong way to get started. But, to help keep your mind from wandering, you might pick a quiet place and start with a plan – any plan. Maybe it’s meditating on one verse or a short passage. Or maybe you want to read a longer passage and just observe where the Holy Spirit draws your attention. As with meditation, it might be clunky at first, but will become increasingly comfortable over time.

Here are a few questions about today’s topic:

1. After we’ve talked through it for the past couple of weeks, how important do you think it is to make time reflect on scripture instead of just reading/hearing it quickly?
2. Do you find it difficult to carve out time for God because of your busy schedule?
3. Do you agree that God can multiply the time you set apart for Him? If so, what are some of the ways He can do that?
4. The word “cheerful” is used above in relation to our mindset going into scriptural reflection. Do you think it makes a difference to God how enthusiastically we approach the time we give Him?
5. Two weeks ago, one of our questions was “why do you think faith is so important to God?”. After two more discussion about faith, do you have any additional thoughts on this question?