Cherish real friendship

The world needs more warm hearts and fewer hot heads.
If you have some good friends — and you should not expect more than five during your lifetime — you must show yourself to be friendly. There are some things that being a friend will not produce. We should treat our friends like a bank account; refrain from drawing too heavily on either. When you close your eyes to the faults of others, you can then watch the doors of friendship swing wide.
Deliver me from these perfect people all around us. There are those who will make you sick on your stomach with their phony ways of life. They come up to you with smiles and, in the meantime, they are waiting to stab you in your back. How often do they betray those around us?
A true friend is something of value. If you come up with a true friend, please hold on to that person, for they are hard to find. You see, we live in a time when people are geared up to major in bad news and they like to hear something bad on other people. In the process, they like to pass the bad news on to others. When do we give true friendship and good news about people top billing?
Many people march for many years through life and they cannot list one real good friend. In order to have friends, you must be a friend. Nobody wants to be your friend when they know that you have what they once called a motor mouth. The motor-mouth person is the one who is forever discussing all the bad things about people. Nobody wants to be around them, let alone to try to be their friend.
If you walk in integrity, you will not stumble and you will come up with some real friends.
There are those who will laugh with you and have fun with you, but do not read this as friendship. Friendship runs deep. False friends are those who roll out the carpet for you one day and pull it out from under you the next day. People of this nature should not be trusted or considered as a true friend.
The pure true friend will joyfully sing with you when you are on the mountain top, and silently walk beside you through the valley. The real friend warms you by his presence, trusts you with his secrets and remembers you in his or her prayers.
But acts of betrayal are going on around us every day. Many people are betrayed daily by those they thought were their friends. Hidden under the flag of friendship, you will discover that there are those who have the same virtues, the same enemies, or the same faults.
It is very painful that those on your job who pretended to be your friends are the ones who get you demoted, or even get you fired. Have people forgotten that you will reap what you sow? The old song reminds us that when you dig a pitfall for one, you had better dig two.
If you are for real, you will not let the motor-mouth people come around and run people down. There is a great need for church members to get into their Bible studies. Just going to church on Sunday and having a perfect church attendance record will not get you into heaven. We must check up on our relationship with others.
So many have suffered for years because so-called friends betrayed them at a time when they really needed them most. Then, there are those violent, aggressive, hot-tempered people who are quick to retaliate and get even.
Please do not plan to get even with someone. There is something that we call forgiveness and love. You should not try to bully your way through life. Friendship combines two things, affection and trust. You do not misuse a friend. And above all, do not look up or down at a friend. Friendship should mean faithfulness.
The most valuable friend is one who will tell you what you should be told even if it momentarily offends you. The secret enemy is the one who will cause you harm and you will not know where the trouble is coming from.
If you go down the list, and check the people who you walk with daily, you will discover that there are very few who still stand with you during the storms of life.
False friends will roll out the carpet for you one day and then pull it from under you the next day. As long as your conscience is your friend, never mind about your enemies.
Now, we should be careful in choosing your friends, and be even more cautious in changing them.
When you find this person that will stand with you, do not ever betray him or her. Watch your daily living, and make sure that you do not betray Jesus Christ. After all, He is your best friend, and He died to prove it. Do you need a friend? Try Jesus.