Show me your Friends and I will show you your Future

1 Corinthians 15:33

Don’t be deceived, bad company corrupts good character.

Here is an exercise I want you try out

Find a stable platform you can stand on (not to high please). Then tell a friend or family member to climb on top. This must be a person of about the same size and weight. Then extend your hand to him or her with the instruction to try and pull you up. Allow the person to try his or her best, but do resist. Then change tactics and start to try and pull the person down (if you can do it safely, do it).

what is the lesson?

It will be clear from this exercise that is is far easier to pull a person down than it is to pull a person up. Especially if the person do not want to be pulled up!

The reality and danger of 1 Corinthians 15:33

You have for example certain friends you like to hang around with. You know they are not Christians and that they do not have Godly characters nor habits. But you tell yourself that you can maintain yourself! After all, you are a Christian and you do have strong Christian values and principles. But you also know that they do not want to change their habits at present. Scripture is however clear what the end result is going to be!

Don’t be deceived, bad company corrupts good character.

Show me your friends and I will show you what you will become...

We are in the world but we are not of this world

John 15:19

If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.

Please this is not to say that we should be a Light to the world! No, we speak here about the company you keep and the friends you make! To reach the world I do not have to make the world my friends!

Learn from Jesus! Who was the people he had for friends? Who was the people whom He spend quality time with? Yet, He did also reached out to the the people of the world - the lost, the sick, the oppressed and possessed! He shared with them, He taught them and he prayed for them. But they were not his close friends - until they came into the light!

Matthew 5:14-16

You are the light of the world. A city on top of a hill can’t be hidden.  Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a basket. Instead, they put it on top of a lampstand, and it shines on all who are in the house.  In the same way, let your light shine before people, so they can see the good things you do and praise your Father who is in heaven.