Friends
A couple of weeks ago I was at the Bangor Worldwide Missionary Convention Youth Night, and something that one of the guys speaking said really struck me.
The guy had been on a gap year in Kurdistan in Iraq, and during the time there he made a lot of different friends, some christians, some not. During his time there he realised the importance of these different friendships he had, and his role in them. When with his christian friends, as he was wanting to encourage them and build them up in their faith, especially in such a spiritually depraved area. When with his non-christian friends, his aim was to see them won for Christ, answer their spiritual questions, as it was important for these people who had never heard to hear as much as he could possibly tell them while he was there.
His challenge to us who were listening was how do we see our friendships, with both christians and non-christians. Even in our seeming comfort where we have such freedom and access to God, His word, and the ability to freely learn and study His word, we need to be encouraging each other in our faiths. How often when with our christian friends are we talking about anything and anything, but not talking about our relationships with God, and about God Himself, encouraging and building up each other. With our non-christian friends, although we know that they need to hear, and many of them probably already have, we should still be encouraging them to come to Christ, and see Him. We don’t know when they could be caled from this scene of time, and find themselves in a lost eternity. How often can we sidestep spiritual conversations with our friends, for whatever reasons (embarassment, not caring, not knowing what to say).
Our friendships are the most important things to us, and we can all be “missionaries” in our friendships, encouraging our christian mates, and striving to see our non-christian friends saved. I’m still trying to figure out how to improve these areas, so any feedback would be good, and challenge each other how we can effectively change these vital parts of our lives.
