Is It Important Who You Spend Time With?
By Pastor John Fredericksen
Whether
we realize it or not, we are all affected by the people with whom we
spend time. Their attitudes, philosophies, language, and spirituality
(good or bad) have a tendency to rub off on us, even if we don’t realize
it. The Lord warns us about this in I Corinthians 15:33: “Be not
deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.” This isn’t true
only for young people. It is true for believers of all ages. We might
not want to think this could happen to us, but the Lord encourages us
not to be deceived about this important principle.
David
realized how important it was to surround himself with the right kind
of spiritually minded people. His testimony was, “I am a companion of
all them that fear thee, and of them that keep thy precepts” (Psa.
119:63). He intentionally chose to minimize the time he spent around the
ungodly, or only somewhat spiritually minded, and to maximize his time
around truly dedicated believers. Doing so gave him continual
encouragement to walk after the Lord with a pure heart and not after the
ways of the world.
The
Apostle Paul must have embraced this principle for living too. As we
look through his letters, it is easy to see the close relationship he
maintained with many saints who were truly living for the Lord. Luke,
Aquilla and Priscilla, Philemon, Titus, and Timothy are only a few he
mentions with whom he had consistent fellowship. In contrast, neither
Paul nor David spent a great deal of time with the lost, or ungodly,
unless it was with ministry in mind.
We
are not suggesting that believers cut themselves off from the unsaved
or become hermits. We have instruction and examples to the contrary. We
learn from II Corinthians 5:20 that “we are ambassadors for Christ” with
the ministry of reconciliation or, in other words, the mission of
sharing a clear gospel of grace with all that we can. Similarly,
Ephesians 3:9 tells us Paul’s mission was also to “make (or help) all
men see what is the fellowship of the mystery.” We too should share this
goal of seeking to share with everyone the gospel of grace and the
joyous news of God’s secret program of grace that is distinct from
Israel and the Mosaic Law. So, we should have a ministry-minded outreach
to others.
The
proper balance to find should be in still maintaining an outward
ministry, yet limiting our time with the lost, unspiritually minded, or
even marginally spiritually minded. It is important for us to “be not
deceived” about how others influence us and therefore to choose, like
David and Paul before us, to make friends and companions of those who
are so spiritually minded that we will be continually encouraged in the
Lord. Is it important who we spend time with and how much time we spend
with them? It certainly is! May God help each of us to cultivate the
best kind of friendships: those with dedicated, spiritually minded
believers of like precious faith.
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