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Choose Your Friends Carefully

Choose Your Friends Carefully

Proverbs 12:26 The righteous should choose his friends carefully, For the way of the wicked leads them astray.

Good friends are a true blessing. This past week I’ve had the opportunity to reconnect with several “old” friends I haven’t heard from in a while. A few sent text messages, one called, and one came by the house to see me. In each case it did me good. These are men who have been in my life for a long time, men who have been there for me when times were hard and rejoiced with me when times were good. They’ve corrected me when I was wrong and supported me when I was right. Scripture says, “iron sharpens iron,” (Proverbs 27:17) and that’s what good friends do. They hone you into a better person than you would be without them.

The book of Proverbs has much to teach us about friends, and much of that teaching is negative. There are many warnings in scripture regarding false friends who would take advantage of you and mislead you, but a true friend loves always and is closer than a brother. That’s why it’s so important to choose your friends carefully. Godly friends help you stay on the right path, but wicked friends lead you astray. A real friend gives good counsel, but a false friend gives bad advice. A good friend sticks by you when times are lean, but a false friend only hangs around long enough to get something from you. I’m blessed to have the right kind of friends, but I also know that to have good friends I must be a good friend. (Proverbs 18:24)

So let me encourage you to contact some of the friends you haven’t heard from for a while. Be as good a friend to them as they’ve been to you. And, if the opportunity presents itself, make a new friend or two, but choose your friends carefully.

Have a God Filled Week,
Brother Donnie

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New Beginnings

New Beginnings

John 3:7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’

So, here we are at the beginning of a brand-new year. Many see these days as a chance for a fresh start, a chance to put the old year behind and move forward, a chance at a new beginning, and that’s good. It’s good to have a fresh start with a new outlook, new goals, and a new life.

But isn’t that what Jesus offers us?

There was a day when an old Pharisee, a man whose whole life revolved around stale traditions and old rituals, came to Jesus seeking something more, something better. His name was Nicodemus. This man had been in a religious rut for years and he was looking for a way out of it. He was looking for a fresh start, a new beginning, but he was shocked when Jesus told him, “You can’t enter the Kingdom of God unless you’re born again.”

Nicodemus was looking for a new start, but he didn’t expect to go that far. He asked Jesus, “How can a man be born again? Can he climb back into his mother’s womb and start all over?”

And Jesus answered, “You must be born of water and Spirit.” He said, “What is born of flesh is flesh and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.” What did Jesus mean?

He was telling Nicodemus, and us, that to enter eternal life in Heaven you must receive the life changing, indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and the only way to do that is to have saving faith in Jesus.

You see, when you put your faith in Jesus the Holy Spirit comes into your life and changes you into someone other than who you used to be. You get a fresh start, a new beginning. You are born again.

Happy New Year, and Have a God Filled Week,
Brother Donnie