Friends, Foes, & Fools

I am sure you'd agree, friends are an important blessing and part of our God-given lives. Friendships can make or break a life.

To each of my friends reading this, thank you so much for being a friend! I am glad we can be a part of each other's lives knowing God is doing things for His glory in and through us together.

I am grateful to have friends who provide encouragement, wisdom, and truths that are sometimes hard to hear but are necessary.

Sunday morning, April 30, at 10:30, we're going to delve into what true friendship is and how to be a good friend. Invite your friends to come with you! (One of the best places to meet up with friends is at church!)

Note how powerful relationships are. Proverbs 13:20 says, "He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed." That's a wake-up call!

We'll lean in to learn that friendship is not just having fun or being able to share words and time. Friendship means there's an open door of influence. Good friends build each other up in good (wise) ways. There is a such thing as friendships that are bad for us. There are foes and there are enemies who seem like friends but have very different agendas. Some relationships are bent on destructive behavior and attitudes.

Parents, we need to help our young people to learn how to discern relationships early in life. There are pretenders, predators, and manipulators galore who sound good but will mess up life if our kids do not learn to discern.

As the sobering saying goes, a friend can undo in fifteen minutes what it's taken fifteen years for parents to instill in a child's life.

If we really want what is right, we must choose to have good, Godly friends--and we must also choose to be that kind of friend for others! Human friends are broken people like you, so grace is in order, but learn to be a friend like Jesus, the only perfect and most important friend you can find!

I close mentioning another important subject. Sunday, May 7, Lord willing, we are going to focus on what God says about Sex--lust, love, and other perspectives. This is a very needed subject in our day. It is something many families shy away from. I get it--sometimes it can feel uncomfortable to discuss. However, it's a subject our world is bombarding us with. We must help our families to have God's mind on the matter. Consider, the world is trying to influence even the most vulnerable of our generation, preschoolers, in alarming ways, so a clear look at this extremely important subject will help all of us.

Thanks for reading, friend!

Blessings,
Pastor Dennis Schaffer

Check out more here on our site at opendooronline.com for more info about what God is doing at Open Door and how you can be a part of it!