Tuesday Night Bible Study (4/30/2024)
7 Characteristics of a Christian (Biblical) Friend
Loving
Love drives us to help each other and keep each other from sin. Love each other as Jesus loves us…willing to lay down our lives (selflessness).
This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me. You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name. This is my command: Love each other. John 15:12-17
Encouraging
Build each other up in righteousness. Tell each other to do the right thing.
So encourage each other and build each other up, just as you are already doing. 1 Thessalonians 5:11
Does Good
Consider each other in love and in good works. Make sure we push each other to the good deeds. Examples: service in the church (not just Sundays and not just inside the building), support the ministry, support others in need, etc.
By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place. 21And since we have a great High Priest who rules over God’s house, 22let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water.
23Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. 24Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. 25And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near. Hebrews 10:20-25
Forgiving
Learn how to let things go! Forgive others as Christ has forgiven us.
Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. Colossians 3:13
Helping
Spirit of help. Be a helper and not a hindrance.
If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble. Ecclesiastes 4:10
Don’t judge others
Be careful with your discussions about “issues.” Leave room for God’s blessings/mercy. “If the person is still alive, there is hope.”
Don’t speak evil against each other, dear brothers and sisters. If you criticize and judge each other, then you are criticizing and judging God’s law. But your job is to obey the law, not to judge whether it applies to you. James 4:11
Being there when times are hard
Bear each other’s burdens. Through prayer.
Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ. Galatians 6:2