Is there someone in your life that just makes you a better person? I mean when you are around them you learn what it means to live well. They do not just tell you what you are doing wrong (if they are a good friend they will tell you this occasionally), they tell you what you are doing right too. They live out their faith in a real and tangible way. They do not sit back and point their fingers at everyone else, because they realize how sinful they themselves are, but they do not use their own weakness as an excuse not to help others learn from their mistakes. They actually care about you, and your well-being. They are not in the relationship for what they can get out of it. They love you in an honest and real way.When you spend time with them, you know that it is time well spent. You are inspired to live like them, and to learn from their example. They help you become a better wife, mother, daughter, friend and most of all follower of Christ. It seems that no matter whom they are with, they are godly, faithful, always pointing others to Jesus.You might wonder if you were left without them what you would do, what you would be like. When you do not get to spend large amounts of time with them, you feel like you are drifting away from where you need to be. You might doubt your own strength or heart.That is when you remember that Jesus gave you this person not as a replacement for Himself, but as an example of one totally devoted to Him, therefore a good example to follow. Just as Paul wrote to those he ministered to, “imitate me as I imitate Christ”, so too, if you have a friend like this, you have been given a modern day Paul to learn from. Know that no matter where you go, you will walk even closer to Jesus because such a faithful friend once guided you.
Lloyd recently said, each of us needs to have a Paul in our lives to walk ahead of us in faith as a guide. He then said that we also need someone to walk beside us, someone not ahead of us nor behind us in our maturity, but someone right with us in Jesus. Finally, he said that we need a Timothy to lead. Someone we are leading toward a deeper and more intimate relationship with Jesus.
I have often had overlapping friendships, where my friends and I trade places, sometimes we are walking side by side, other times they are holding my hand leading me in the right direction, and still other times I am leading them. The key to these relationships is that we are all looking in the same direction. No matter who is leading or who is following, we always have the set goal of walking together in pursuit of Jesus.
Who is your Paul, your Barnabas, your Timothy? Don’t take them for granted. They are gifts from God. Keep good company so that you might continue to grow in your faith and obedience. As you do that, you will be to someone else what your friend has been to you. You will become a good example for someone else, and one day they will imitate you, as you imitate Christ
