Friends with fists

Psalm 141:5

5 Let a righteous man strike me—it is a kindness;
let him rebuke me—it is oil for my head;
let my head not refuse it.

Proverbs 27:5-6

5 Better is open rebuke
than hidden love.
6 Faithful are the wounds of a friend;
profuse are the kisses of an enemy.

Do you have enough people in your life who love you enough to tell you when you are being self-serving, self-absorbed, grumpy, obstinate, arrogant, sinful, prideful, etc....?

If you don't, you don't have any friends. You may have people who like you, who know you only well enough to know your glamour shots, who appease your wrathful repartees by speaking sugar and splenda over you in conversation, but a friend you cannot find.

The Scripture says that our hearts are deceitful above all things. We are prone to believe our motives are pure and our thoughts perfected. We tend to see our cirucmstances as having caused us to be late and the other person walking in simultaneously to be tardy, lazy, and irresponsible. We see our side of the argument and our perceived slights. We do not see the whole story or the world beyond our own interest. Without a good friend to love us enough to speak truth into our microcosms, we are lost in a vacuum of blackened insight and manipulative evil.

Find a friend who will not just be loyal to you, but loyal to Jesus and truth. Loyalty is only a virtue inasmuch as the object of its devotion. Do not insist upon your friend's loyalty to you. You are not worthy of loyalty. Insist on their devotion to Jesus and in that may they be convenantally bound to your growth in faith, hope, and love in Christ. This is loyalty you can rightly call friendship.