AUGUST 11, 2009
FRIENDS. Some folks are "friends" because they gain an advantage, whether in profit, power or prurience.
Then there is true friendship. It is good for TRUE FRIENDSHIP to reach higher levels, but friendships at all levels must be cultivated to reach their full potential. Treat your friends as TREASURES, because they are. Here are some Scripture verses on FRIENDS.
PROVERBS...
Proverbs 17:17 A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.
Proverbs 18:24 A man that hath friends must show himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticks closer than a brother.
Proverbs 27:5-6
(5) Open rebuke is better than secret love.
(6) Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.
Proverbs 27:9-10
(9) Ointment and perfume rejoice the heart: so doth the sweetness of a man's friend by hearty counsel.
(10) Thine own friend, and thy father's friend, forsake not; neither go into thy brother's house in the day of thy calamity: for better is a neighbor that is near than a brother far off.
Proverbs 27:17 Iron sharpens iron; so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend.
JOHN AND JAMES...
John 15:13-15 (13) Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. (14) Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. (15) Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knows not what his lord does: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.
James 2:22-24 (22) See thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect (23) And the Scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God. (24) Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.
James 4:4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
