Modelling Real Friendship

• Have you ever had a friend call on you at an inconvenient time, asking for something specific but you just don’t have the time or willingness to help? Maybe they’ve come round as you’ve just sat down to your favourite meal. Or, they’ve asked for your help urgently but you’ve been invited to a party you just can’t afford to miss!

• How do we Change Our Friends? Well, if we’re never willing to help them at the risk of what we may lose, we’ll never model the kind of servant heart Jesus had. When you read the Gospel accounts of Jesus life on earth, it seems that He always made time for people. Just when you’d think He’d had enough, along came someone else who wanted help, and Jesus healed them. Check out Matthew 9: 18-34 and read of the demands on Jesus’ ministry as He went from place to place; a dead girl, a sick woman, two blind men and a demon possessed man - all in a short space of time.

• I have a friend who has been so kind to me in the past. When my wife was nearly nine months pregnant, she was driving to hospital for a blood test. She was stuck in traffic, the engine overheated and she had to pull over to call for help. Several cars drove past, ignoring my pregnant wife with no offers of help. I was a few miles away and couldn’t get there quicker than my friend could, who was busy working. He dropped everything got on his motorbike and bombed over to wait with her until me and the AA arrived.

• He was our friend in need that day. He didn’t have to help, but he did. What kind of a friend are you in need? Do you ‘drop everything’ and do what you can to help your mates? Revolutionary friends change the lives of their own mates in the way that they respond to the needs of others.