You Got a Friend in me.

Good day to you,

An open rebuke is better than hidden love. Wounds from a sincere friend are better than many kisses from an enemy. Prov. 27:5, 6

An open rebuke or constructive criticism is active and tangible love, not hidden love, or at least it should be. And we see in this passage that this love comes from a sincere friend, one who is committed and has a proven a track record of being there through the valleys and hard times and has remained engaged. 

I would say that Jesus fulfills the conditions of a sincere friend, and he brings forth points of confrontation and rebuke into my life. Interestingly, I have found that this “challenging” only happens about 1/5 of the time in our interactions. More often he comes with daily grace and mercy, forgiveness, teaching, and a desire to dialogue together. At times through the Word, by Holy Spirit, or my conscience he brings a firm but kind rebuke or conviction. This is active tangible love, pointing out wrong thinking or choices to keep me from destruction, sin, discouragement, and defeat. 

If Jesus relates to us more often with grace, mercy, forgiveness, comfort, affirmation, teaching, building us up, and when needed a specific conviction, wouldn’t this be a good model for us to use in our relationships to one another, with the friendships we have with our brothers and sisters in Christ or even with anyone for that matter?  When we model these priorities in the friendship, we are taking the same approach as Jesus in our interactions with those friends.  

Yes, real and honest love does confront, but only in an environment where grace, forgiveness, loyalty, commitment, and so forth already exist. Sincere friends! I don’t see the word “accountability” in the Bible. We don’t need people to keep us accountable as much as we need sincere friends who love us completely all of the time. 

Q: Have you ever had a friend that was safe, and you allowed them to confront You when needed?

Q: We have all had someone rebuke us or confront us when it was a power play or was abusive. Pray through that if you still find some ugly there.