Sticky Friends: Grow in Grace

Anita Delene Manthe
Nov 4, 2017
3 min read

The kind of sticky friends we all need are those that grow in grace together with us. Together does not mean there are no differences, and that we agree at all times. Together means you are united and focused on the main and true things about life. As a Christian this is honoring and glorifying the Lord in our lives. It means we live for Him, because of Him, and this affects all we do and say – to ourselves first, and then to others – our friends and family.

If we want to have good strong and solid friendships, we need to be a good strong and solid friend. We will choose friends who embody the things we value. If it is godliness, we will choose godly friends – the kind who examine their lives Biblically to see if they are walking wisely. If you want to grow in your walk to maturity – these are the friends you will choose.

Below are many passages which are the bulk of this article. Read carefully, and examine your heart. What kind of friend are you? List the areas the Lord is using to convict you to change and grow to be the kind of friend He would have you be. Are you truthful, are you gracious, merciful, and kind? The best friends serve the Friend who laid down His life for them. Have you? Will you?

Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart (1 Peter 1:22).
Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person (Colossians 4:6).
You were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:16-19).
Better is open rebuke than hidden love. Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy (Proverbs 27:5-6).
Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another (Ephesians 4:22-25).
Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love (Ephesians 4:15-16).