Thursday, January 31, 2008

The Garden of Friendship - Unto edification

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Time to spruce up those gardens again! One of the things that is very important in a Christian friendship is that each individual is committed to edifying the other! The American Heritage Dictionary defines edify: To instruct especially so as to encourage intellectual, moral, or spiritual improvement.

It is wonderful to enjoy your friends, to have long conversations and to do fun things together, but our friendships as women of God should have a deeper purpose ...

...to build up and encourage in the things of the Lord.
Here are some Scriptures on that very subject. I'm using the NKJV here:
"Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers." Eph 4:29
"Therefore let us pursue the things which make for peace and the things by which one may edify another." Romans 14:19
"... Let all things be done for edification." I Cor 14:26
Of course, our favorite verse fits in here so well. Philippians 4:8 "Finally brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy -- meditate on these things."
I think that if we are with our friends, and we are careful to speak of and focus on things that are true, noble, just, pure, lovely, of good report, virtuous and praiseworthy, that we will speak unto edification -- will we not? If we are consistently meditating on these things, we will surely speak of them.
Just a reminder for all of us - yes, me too - to think about.

4 comments:

Sara N. Smith said...

What a wonderful post - thank you for sharing that!!
btw, you have a lovely blog! Praise the Lord - keep up the good work! :)

Ella said...

Very true. Having friends who uplift and edify are precious! And it is better to have none than ones who tear us down.

Sara said...

Thank you for these words Bev! As Christians it is so important to be careful as to what we think about and say. Very good reminder.

Neesie said...

Once again...good post!