RELATIONSHIPS -- WEEK 1

Relationships can be difficult to begin but even more difficult to maintain. Most of us have plenty of people around us that we casually hang out with, and even do life with, but few of us truly have those deep relationships in our life. For most of us the reason we don't have those type of relationships in our life is that we have had really poor models of what relationships look like. We go through relationship after relationship or we become so hopeless that we give up on the possibility of deep relationships period.

From looking through the life of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego we can learn a little about true friendship. Daniel 3
FAITHFULNESS -- do you have someone 100% faithful in your life, you never have to question if they have your back. Are you 100% faithful to anyone in your life?
ACCOUNTABILITY -- Do you have someone who holds you accountable to who you are, to making the right choices, that will challenge you if your morals or decisions change? Do you hold other people accountable or do you rationalize it is their life, I don't want to butt in.
SHARPEN YOU -- Do you have friends in your life that make you a better person or do the people that you surround yourself with make you worse off, dumber, have less integrity, etc... Do you make the people you are around better?
DO THEY HAVE YOUR BEST INTEREST AT HEART NOT THEIR OWN INTERESTS -- It is so important to have friends that have your best interest at heart, not their own, not their own agenda, etc... when you have friends that will do whatever it takes for you, you have real friends.

Jesus says in John 15:12-13 -- Love others as I have loved you, there is no greater love of a friend than if he lays his life down for that friend.

What kind of friend are you? What kind of friend are you becoming?