3. What Do I Do When My Friends are Bad Influences?

This week, we’re going to talk about the importance in the quality of your friendships.

Sometimes in life, we are going to have to make the tough decision of letting some friends go. 

I say tough, because if you have ever had to walk away from a friendship, you know it’s the farthest thing from being easy to do. 

Sometimes those friends are as close to you as family. Sometimes it’s the fact that you’re comfortable in your friendships and you don’t want to lose your friends.

Other times fear might hold us back, because we think that we can help our friend make good choices instead of going down the path that they’re headed on.

One of the hardest things I believe that we will ever do in life is end a friendship or a relationship that is not healthy. 

Have you ever heard the quote, “You become like the 5 people you spend the most time with. Choose carefully?”

I want you to think about this…have you ever been hanging around a friend who is negative…always complaining about everything and then afterward you find yourself complaining as well?

Or let’s change it. Have you ever been around someone who is super joyful and it lifted your spirits? 

That’s exactly what that quote is saying. The more you hang around someone, the more you will act like them. 

Now, I’m not saying that you can’t be nice to everyone or that you can’t engage in small talk with people who aren’t going in the same direction as you.

 But what I am saying is those are not people that you want to spend the most time with. The people you spend the most time with need to be going in the same direction that you want to be going when it comes to your walk with God.

1 Corinthians 15:33 says, “Do not be deceived: evil company corrupts good habits.” 

The reason that this verse starts off with “Do not be deceived,” is because it’s easy to think, “Their choices and their habits won’t effect me.” 

But this verse very clearly tells us that we will eventually become like the people we hang around the most.

Proverbs 22:24-25 has a similar message. It says, “Make no friends with an angry man, and with a furious man do not go, LISTEN TO THIS: lest you learn his ways and set a snare for your soul.”

We become like those we hang around.

Proverbs 12:26 tells us, “The righteous…that’s you if you have given your heart to Jesus…should choose his friends carefully, for the way of the wicked leads them astray.

When you choose your friends, you are choosing what direction you will take in life.

What do you do when you need to walk away from bad influences?

How can you pray for those friends?

What can you do in order to bring better friends into your inner circle?

Check out this week’s episode to learn more!

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