Topic: Make Friends to Make Disciples [RICK WARREN Devotional 28 JULY  2023]

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Make Friends to Make Disciples

BY RICK WARREN — JULY 28, 2023
FROM BETTER TOGETHER

“Be friendly with everyone. Don’t be proud and feel that you know more than others. Make friends with ordinary people.”

Romans 12:16 (CEV)

Everybody’s looking for true friends—not just acquaintances but people who are there with you when you need them most. God wants you to build true friendships with the people that are already in your life so that you can share the Gospel with them. God has put your co-workers and classmates, neighbors and teammates in your life so you can share with them about the most important decision they will ever make. 

If you don’t tell them about what Christ has done for them, then who will? 

The Bible says in Romans 12:16, “Be friendly with everyone. Don’t be proud and feel that you know more than others. Make friends with ordinary people” (CEV). 

Christians tend to fall into one of two extremes: isolation or imitation. Some Christians say, “I don’t want to get polluted by the world. I’m just going to isolate myself. I’ll build a wall and my own little culture.” 

Isolation doesn’t work! How are you going to build any friendships that way?

The other extreme is imitation, which says, “Let’s be just like the world. We’ll dress like the latest pop star. We’ll say whatever we want about other people. We’ll have whatever values and goals popular culture tells us we should have. We’ll be no different from the world.”

That’s not what God wants you to be either. He doesn’t want you to give in to the lowest common denominators of society.

The answer is not isolation or imitation. The Bible says you are to be salt and light in the world. You’re to penetrate the world with God’s goodness. 

God wants you to be holy and secure in your faith. He also wants you to walk out your door into the world and get to know the people he’s placed in your life. As you build relationships with people around you and share truth with them, you are to be in the world but not of the world. 

“For the Holy Spirit, God’s gift, does not want you to be afraid of people, but to be wise and strong, and to love them and enjoy being with them” (2 Timothy 1:7 TLB).

Talk It Over

• Why is it sometimes easier to isolate ourselves rather than get to know people on a deeper level?
• What are some ways you have fallen into the trap of becoming an imitator of the world?
• If you were the only representation of Jesus Christ that someone had in their life, how would they perceive Christianity? How does that make you want to change?

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