What Are You Expecting From Your Friendships?
At times we grapple with our friendships. We experience, loss and gain, atrophy and strengthening, as well as a cyclic ebb and flow throughout the life of the relationship.
Our relationships with people are dependent upon 2 or more individuals making an effort to continue in the nuances of friendship. Readily communicating and forgiving one another as necessary in order that the fellowship remains intact.
However, our relationship with God is not dependent upon us. Surprisingly, our relationship with God was ordained by God and is sustained by God. Sure, our response has a bearing on how we experience Him, but He is always right there, ready for our fellowship.
1 John 1:6
If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.
Being honest with ourselves and God has a bearing on all of our relationships. If we are unwilling to see our sinful hearts in the process of friendship, we will walk in darkness. But when we walk in the light of truth, we are able to have fellowship with one another.
Reciprocity is seemingly the main ingredient in any good relationship. It is defined as;
- the practice of exchanging things with others for mutual benefit, especially privileges granted by one country or organization to another.
Our relationship with God is not a mutually beneficial one, but instead one person gains all the benefit while the other just doles out the benefits! And more than that! One person IS the benefit! We have been granted the precious privileges of the kingdom of God by way of God's great sacrifice.
How often do we try to develop a friendship and struggle with the process of exposing our inner self to someone and trusting them with our hearts, only to get set aside and forgotten or not appreciated or worse, mistreated? All of which can lead to heart ache, despair and depression.
We tend to get wounded or frustrated in our relationships with others, even with God. Why is that?
Do our friendships define who we are? Does our acceptance from specific people have a bearing on how we feel about ourselves? How do we interpret love and acceptance or the seeming lack there of?
Indeed, we must appropriately reflect on our interactions and responses, both internal and external, in order to grow and gain insight from our comrades, from God and from our hearts.
But our friendship with God is solidly based in Christ Jesus alone! No amount of prayer or Bible reading or service to Him will ever be what sustains our God given relationship.
So, if we are to be like Christ then shouldn't we format or idea of friendship based on how He befriended us? A friendship where we give with no expectation of anything in return, not even affection, because we give from the treasury of the Kingdom that God has given to us.
Freely you have received, freely give....
This is not how our human nature responds naturally. We want something when we give of our time, talents or money. Incentives are the currency of the day in every aspect of human existence and also in our relationships.
We place expectations on others that only God can fulfill. We damage our relationships when we expect something when we give something. Our continual self centeredness exacerbates those around us without us even realizing that we are doing it!
Jesus demonstrated true humility in humanity.
He gave freely of His life, even when He didn't want to, knowing that He would get nothing in return but He did it for us! He did this so that we could experience heaven on earth in our relationships. He reconciled us to God so that we could in turn be ministers of reconciliation!
We are God's ambassadors and must keep this in mind throughout the ebb and flow of our friendships.
2 Corinthians 5:11-21
Because we understand our fearful responsibility to the Lord,
we work hard to persuade others.
God knows we are sincere, and I hope you know this too.
Are we commending ourselves to you again?
No, we are giving you a reason to be proud of us,
so you can answer those who brag about having a spectacular ministry rather than having a sincere heart.
If it seems we are crazy, it is to bring glory to God.
And if we are in our right minds, it is for your benefit. Either way, Christ's love controls us. Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life. He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them. So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view.
Our idea of friendship must be informed by the gospel!
We must allow Christ's love to control us in our thinking when it comes to our idea of a 'good' friend. As ambassadors of Christ and His kingdom we too must seek to lay aside our own agenda for Christ's. As we die to self we receive his new life and we no longer live for ourselves, placing expectations on others in our friendships. This is FREEDOM! We can stop evaluating how our friends treat us or don't treat us or how we match their friendship ideal but instead live as Christ for Christ.
At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!
And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him.
Friendship is indeed a gift from God! He brought us back to himself through Christ. And now we are part of HIS STORY to reconcile or restore friendly relations.
For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself,
no longer counting people's sins against them.
And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation.
So we are Christ's ambassadors;
God is making his appeal through us.
We speak for Christ when we plead,
"Come back to God!" For God made Christ,
who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin,
so that we could be mad right with God through Christ.
We must let this passage inform or understanding of friendship. What would happen if we truly applied this to our idea of friendship?
No longer would we be counting people's sins against them! We would be free to walk as ambassadors of Christ, allowing God to make his appeal for friendship through us.
So what does our attitude towards our friends say about our idea of true friendship?
Are we willing to make it all about Him? Or are we going to demand that people be what we need, when we need it? Are we going to expect specific favors from our friends? Or are we going to lay down our lives for the sake of others, so that they will be reconciled to God as they see our love for them in Christ?
Abba, you fulfilled Your brilliant plan through Christ Jesus so that we could experience true friendship with you! Thank you for considering us as friends. Help us to befriend people that cannot give us anything in return so that we can be ambassadors for Christ!
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