Insight #25

RULES FOR RELATIONSHIPS

Relationships can be broken down into two aspects which are; friendships and associations. A lot of people get these two mixed up but you shouldn’t. Associations with people could arise due to numerous reasons such as neighbours, classmates, mutual friends and so on but you must realise that certain associations must never cross the line. We’ll discuss this in detail as we move on.

Friendships are a higher step from associations. I want you to pay close attention to this because this is where a lot of people have gone into miserable and unprofitable relationships. A friendship should never “just happen”. Friendships must be carefully though through and prayed about. Never have, or call anyone your friend until you’re sure you want to be friends with them. You’ll see why as we move on.

Now, the first thing you must do in any relationship is to DEFINE it. That means you consciously decide whether the other person involved is a friend or just an association. This may seem trivial, but one of the worst things you can do is to have undefined relationships in your life. They will rob you of your time and energy and also bring you lots of pain. It doesn’t stop there though, if you decide someone should be your friend, and then you decide how close you’ll be to them and how valuable the friendship will be to you.

The advantage of defining your relationships is that you will be able to determine how much energy you spend on each friend, how much of your time or resources you can give to each friend, and whose words of advice, correction or encouragement will mean more to you. Before we continue, there are a few points I would like you to consider.

(I) Your friends or associations contribute to the outcome of your life. Let’s look at Proverbs 13:20;

20 He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed. (KJV)

(II) Your friends or associations determine if you’ll increase or decrease in every area of your life. Therefore they can affect your success.

(III) The kind of friends you keep will eventually form your character. If you want to have a sound character, look for someone with a sound character to befriend, just as we read in the scripture above.

(IV) Everyone needs friends, no one is an island. There are people God has purposed to be your friends.

Secondly, never have friends that are immoral or ungodly, no matter what. Even if you have been classmates since you were in nursery school. This doesn’t mean that you wont share the gospel with them, it just means that you don’t “hang out” them or spend unnecessary time with them. The reason for this is simple, because of their negative or wayward lifestyles, a lot of bad behaviours and negative tendencies are in them. And the truth is those things could enter into your life if you aren’t careful

Join us next week as we continue our series on relationships. Also if you have any bad friends or associations that affect you negatively, especially by wasting your time and energy, you must withdraw from such relationships and ask God to remove anything that might have come into your life as a result of those relationships.

PRAYER: Dear father please help me to pick the right friends and associate with those who will bring blessings into my life and disconnect me from any wrong relationship I’m in Jesus name Amen.

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