Friends with Benefits
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1. The majority of the time, God blesses people… using people.
2. Since human relationships are important to God, they must be important to us.
As soon as he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. And Saul took him that day and would not let him return to his father’s house. Then Jonathan made a covenant with David, because he loved him as his own soul.
3. God-ordained relationships can always defy human normalcies.
4. Two aspects of Jonathan are involved in this friendship: his soul and his love.
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
John 15:12-13
5. Love leads me to desire my neighbor’s well-being before my own.
6. True friendships and relationships echo God’s relationship with Israel: they’re convenantal.
7. Loyalty to God means loyalty to others, and loyalty to others means loyalty to God.
And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’
Matthew 25:40
8. God can preserve your life through friendships with people who have friends who hate you.
And Jonathan told David, “Saul my father seeks to kill you. Therefore be on your guard in the morning. Stay in a secret place and hide yourself. And I will go out and stand beside my father in the field where you are, and I will speak to my father about you. And if I learn anything I will tell you.”
And Saul spoke to Jonathan his son and to all his servants, that they should kill David. But Jonathan, Saul’s son, delighted much in David.
9. We must continue to focus on the good we know of people despite the bad we’ve heard about them.
10. True friendships restore broken relationships.
Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.