{"id":3040,"date":"2008-06-08T17:14:46","date_gmt":"2008-06-08T22:14:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/james-mcdonald\/we-need-each-other"},"modified":"2015-11-21T12:11:38","modified_gmt":"2015-11-21T17:11:38","slug":"we-need-each-other","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/2008\/06\/08\/we-need-each-other\/","title":{"rendered":"We Need Each Other"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p><em>A friend loves at all times.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&#8212; Proverb 17:17<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Often the way God works in a person\u2019s life is through other people. If there\u2019s anything in my life that is praiseworthy, so much of it, from my perspective, relates to the people around me\u2014my family, friends, and ministry partners. These people know and understand the power of biblical friendship.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m sure you too could report that major steps forward in your relationship with God have come through Him working through the influence of other people. If we\u2019re going to continue to go forward spiritually and be the people that God wants us to be, we need to take hold of one another in caring, supportive, biblical friendship.<\/p>\n<p>Friendship has always been a priority relationship with God. Throughout His Word, when God has wanted to picture a relationship of intimacy and integrity, He described friendship:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Of David and Jonathan, 1 Samuel 18:1 says \u201cthe soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>James 2:23 calls Abraham, \u201cGod\u2019s friend.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Jesus Himself describes the highest kind of love in terms of friendship, \u201cGreater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends\u201d (John 15:13-14).<\/li>\n<li>Proverb 17:17 says, \u201cA friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In each of these contexts, godly friendship is a God-given refuge in hard times. Friendship is a bond in seasons of heartache, disappointment, and failure. A godly friend says, \u201cTimes are hard? You\u2019re disappointed and discouraged? You\u2019ve failed personally? I\u2019ll stand with you, man. I\u2019m not going anywhere.\u201d Real friends come alive in those times. They move in closer.<\/p>\n<p>Biblical friendship\u2014lasting, loving friendship is a wonderful, very powerful thing. God created you and me to need each other. I want to be that kind of friend, don\u2019t you? God help us not just to want others to be like that for us, but help us to be that kind of a friend to the people in our lives.<\/p>\n<p><b>\u00a9 2007 Walk in the Word<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A friend loves at all times. &#8212; Proverb 17:17 Often the way God works in a person\u2019s life is through other people. If there\u2019s anything in my life that is praiseworthy, so much of it, from my perspective, relates to the people around me\u2014my family, friends, and ministry partners. These people know and understand the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"twitterCardType":"","cardImageID":0,"cardImage":"","cardTitle":"","cardDesc":"","cardImageAlt":"","cardPlayer":"","cardPlayerWidth":0,"cardPlayerHeight":0,"cardPlayerStream":"","cardPlayerCodec":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3040\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}