Five Friends That Will Take You Down

Proverbs 13:20

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Type
Devotional
Topic
Wisdom & Choices
Books
Proverbs
Written for
Teens
Notes
338 words

How you may use this

Use it as you wish. Adapt it, cut it, teach it. The personal stories are mine: either credit me for those or, better, tell your own. Most of the rest I gathered from other sources over the years, so I claim little original here. My one requirement — do not take this and teach it without further study.

The notes

5 Friends That Will Take You Down

In the book of Proverbs we read in chapter 13 verse 20: “Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.”

When was the last time you really examined your friends? We tend to take steps back and examine lots of things in our lives: our marriages, our finances, our careers or business commitments…but lots of times we don’t do that with our friends.

Tonight I have a very short list of 5 supposed “friends” and what they can do to destroy your relationship with the Lord.

  1. The mocker: the friend who always make fun of spiritual things. If one of your friends is constantly making fun of the way you live your life, calling you a “Bible thumper” or a “Goody-two shoes,” it’s probably time to reevaluate your relationship with that friend.

  2. The doubter: the friend who usually is the last to acknowledge what God can do. This is the friend who believes and talks about the worst kind of things.

  3. The compromiser: the friend who goes to worship and talks a good talk, but more often than not, does not back it up with a life that honors God. This may be the friend who is one person on Sundays and Wednesdays and a completely different one on all the other days.

  4. The proud: the friend who thinks he or she is more spiritual than you or anyone else and constantly displays a critical attitude about everyone else’s “lack of commitment.” It’s one thing to be a spiritual person…it’s another to look down on other people because they’re “not as spiritual” as you are.

  5. The gossip: the friend who always “talks down” other people around you. If a person says negative things to you about his or her other friends, what are they saying about you?

Tonight are you keeping company with the friends that you should? Do you have the friends that God wants you to have?

Near it on the shelf