Butters Baptist Church

The Value of Friendship

                As we grow up many of our outlooks on life seem to change.  We learn that money is not easy to come by, we learn that the days are not really long they are short, and we learn that the old saying “that beauty is only skin deep” is a very true statement.  One of the more drastic changes in our outlook comes with the definition of friendship.

                Early on in life we made friends with people that we wanted to play with, people that lived next to us, and just about anybody that came around.   As we began to get older the definitions of friends starts to change.  Friends are no longer people that you enjoy being around, but now friends are determined by who can do what for us. 

                As a result of our new definition of “friends” many people find themselves later on in life all alone.  Friends that are obtained by motives of personal gain seem to come in and out of our lives as frequent as the wind changes direction.  If we would call these people what they are we would call them “acquaintances”. 

                To have a true friend in this life is to have found a rare treasure.  A true friend loves you just for you.  A true friend may not always agree with what you have done or with what you are doing, but a true friend will still be there for you.  A true friend is one that doesn’t have to see you everyday to care about you; a true friend doesn’t have to live next door to be concerned about you.  A true friend will pick up right where you left off even if you haven’t been able to talk in weeks and a true friend will be willing to be known as your friend even when it is not popular with others.  A true friend has your back even when that’s the side that’s under attack.

The bible tells us that “A Friend Loveth At All Times”.

                Let’s all look in our lives and try to identify the people that we would call a true friend.   Better than that lets look at ourselves and try to count how many people would call us a true friend.  I feel that the words “at all times” are the toughest to own up to.  We may see people that we have kicked to the curb or just plain old chose to ignore.   Sometimes we need to practice the words of Isaiah “Woe is me”.

May God help us to be better friends.

Pastor Bobby

In order to understand where revival has gone we must first take a look at what revival is and what revival used to be.  Today revival is nothing more than a meeting that we schedule in our churches every Fall and every Spring.  Revival used to be a meeting that was scheduled after it was laid on the hearts of man after much prayer.  Why have we went from something so meaningful to something so ritualistic?  The answer lies within our pews.  First of all, churches full of lost people can’t have revival.  Churches today are full of people that know religion but don’t know salvation that comes from a repentent heart.  We have our children repeat our prayers when they ask us about Jesus.  We tell them about Jesus but we forget to tell them about them being sinners and needing forgiveness.  They grow up with a profession but no posession.  Our churches have people on the pews that have forgotten where they came from.  We see the Christian that we now are but we forget the sinner that we once were and as a result we look down our noses on those who are in the same sinful messes that we once were in when Jesus saved us.  On our pews sit folk who say that they believe in restoring the fallen but when a christian falls the first thing that they want to do is distance themselves from them.  Real revival left when tears and a brokenness over sin left salvation, real revival left when churches began to have social clicks based on have and have nots and real revival left when Christians started walking by the fallen instead of playing the part of the Good Samaritan.  Have we gone too far to have Real Revival again?  Not if we are willing to get back to the roots of Revival.  Prayer and Direction from God.  Many may say my church won’t change, but the real question is are you willing to change yourself?  You can’t have a fire unless someone is willing to start it.

Preacher Bobby