Seven Areas of Breakthrough This Year:
- Faith – your personal walk with God
- Family – family situations, with children, spouses.
- Finances – managing our money, etc.
- Freedom – areas of our lives that we have strongholds
- Fun – we need to enjoy life
- Field of Endeavor – your job or vocation
- Friendships – social relationships outside of family
Seven Areas of Breakthrough This Year:
- Faith – your personal walk with God
- Family – family situations, with children, spouses.
- Finances – managing our money, etc.
- Freedom – areas of our lives that we have strongholds
- Fun – we need to enjoy life
- Field of Endeavor – your job or vocation
- Friendships – social relationships outside of family
- You need some good, healthy friendships in your life.
Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 | NLT (9) Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. (10) If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble. (11) Likewise, two people lying close together can keep each other warm. But how can one be warm alone? (12) 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.
- No one has a lot of friends. You may have a lot of acquaintances.
Someone who is dying never says, “I wish I had spent more time at the office.” What most people say is, “I wish I had spent more time with my friends and family.”
Proverbs 18:24 | RSV (24) There are friends who pretend to be friends, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.
- Adversity is where you will find who your true friends are.
Luke 15:13-16 | NKJV (13) And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living. (14) But when he had spent all, there arose a severe famine in that land, and he began to be in want. (15) Then he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. (16) And he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate, and no one gave him anything.
Luke 15:13 | AMPC (13) And not many days after that, the younger son gathered up all that he had and journeyed into a distant country, and there he wasted his fortune in reckless and loose [from restraint] living.
The prodigal found himself in a hard time by himself. Where were all of the people that had helped him live in his reckless and loose living?
- Friends are the ones that find out you are human and stay with you anyway.
Christians should have the best friendships; better than those that are in the world.
- Jesus should be our closest friend, but God’s plan is that we should have some close friends, especially through our church relationships.
Acts 2:41-45 | NKJV (41) Then those who gladly received his word were baptized; and that day about three thousand souls were added to them. (42) And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers. (43) Then fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. (44) Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common, (45) and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need.
- Do not put rules on your friendships.
In other words, don’t always look for friends that have your exact likes and dislikes. Learn to be diverse in your relationships.
Truthfully, the foundation of a good marriage relationship is friendship.
- A true friend will not flatter you at all times.
Proverbs 27:6 | CEV (6) You can trust a friend who corrects you, but kisses from an enemy are nothing but lies.
Sometimes as friends, you may wound each other, but our hearts should be to try and help one another.
- The Lord will use those relationships to minister to you.
Proverbs 27:9 | AMPC (9) Oil and perfume rejoice the heart; so does the sweetness of a friend’s counsel that comes from the heart.
- True friendship takes work and effort.
Proverbs 27:17 | TPT (17) It takes a grinding wheel to sharpen a blade, and so one person sharpens the character of another.
- A key to developing those close friendships is to do like Jonathan and love that friend as you love yourself.
Matthew 22:37-39 | TPT (37) Jesus answered him, “‘Love the Lord your God with every passion of your heart, with all the energy of your being, and with every thought that is within you.’ (38) This is the great and supreme commandment. (39) And the second is like it in importance: ‘You must love your friend in the same way you love yourself.’
1 Samuel 18:1-4 | NLT (1) After David had finished talking with Saul, he met Jonathan, the king’s son. There was an immediate bond between them, for Jonathan loved David. (2) From that day on Saul kept David with him and wouldn’t let him return home. (3) And Jonathan made a solemn pact with David, because he loved him as he loved himself. (4) Jonathan sealed the pact by taking off his robe and giving it to David, together with his tunic, sword, bow, and belt.
- You don’t start out being the best of friends; best of friends are developed over years of relationship.
- Allow your friends to be human and make mistakes.
- If their weirdness is not sin, then just put up with their weirdness because you are weird too.
- If you go through friends quickly, then you are looking for the perfect friend and that does not exist except in the Lord Jesus.
Proverbs 18:24 | TPT (24) Some friendships don’t last for long, but there is one loving friend who is joined to your heart closer than any other!