Loyalty In Friendships

 Loyalty In Friendships is a grace that becomes all the more precious when, despite intensifying hardships, a friend is there to comfort and help. The Scriptures remind us never to abandon a friend, nor even to forsake the friends of your father or mother. All true friendships are of great value, but it is a double blessing when friendships traverse the generations.
 How sad it is when a confidence is broken or when a friendship is fractured as a result of gossip or the inability to maintain an entrusted confidence. An unguarded tongue or the inability to maintain trust can become a sharp blade that can slice through a valued friendship. The Scriptures remind us that a gossip betrays a confidence, but a person of integrity keeps a secret: "A talebearer reveals secrets, but he who is trustworthy conceals a matter."
 Honesty is also a mark of genuine friendship and we also read in the Word: "Faithful are the wounds of a friend but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful." Correction is not always appreciated, although it should be always accepted and welcome when coming from a loyal, trusted, and sensitive friend. True and lasting friendships can never be built on deceitfulness of duplicity. Even through the truth may sting our pride, when the truth is spoke in love it should always be acted upon, through it, the Spirit of God will teach a valuable lesson and further build our Christian character and grace.
 Wise counsel and spiritual encouragement is the calling-card of the friend that loves at all times. Loyalty, sensitivity, and a genuine interest in the other are the qualities of the brother and or sister that travels through adversity with us. May we take on these qualities in our dealings with our friends, and praise God when we discover them to be the qualities that characterize our own friends and brothers and sisters-in-Christ.
A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity.

Our United Prayer:
Heavenly Father, we thank You for the dear friends that You have brought into our lives and for the love and comfort that we have received from them over the years. We pray that we would develop the many qualities of genuine friendships, and that You would use us to be friends to others in their times of need. This we ask in Jesus' name, AMEN.