How to Treat Your Friends

Prayer – Lord, I want to treat my friends well—just like You would. How do I do that?

What is happening in the world today? There is so much disaster, like the beginning of birth pangs. Please be merciful to this world of Yours.

 

Epaphras, a member of your own fellowship and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends you his greetings. He always prays earnestly for you, asking God to make you strong and perfect, fully confident that you are following the whole will of God. Colossians 4:12

 

Meditate. Pray for others.

 

Don’t you love this?! This fellow, Epaphras, was with Paul and was thinking about his fellow Christians back home, I’m assuming in Colossae. Epaphras was part of a "fellowship” so I suppose that those in his group would be considered “friends” and that he would desire to support them in prayer. Praying for them, he was petitioning God for strength and perfection. What a wonderful friend!

 

Pray for others--
even if you don't have a relationship...
with them.
Intercede.
Lord have Mercy.

Do you pray for your friends like Epaphras prayed for his friends? Do they pray for you in that same way? Jesus said to treat others the way we want to be treated. That scripture, found in Matthew 7:2, is so well known it is called “The Golden Rule.” It was good guidance in Jesus’ day…and it is good now. I want to have others…family and friends alike… appeal to God on my behalf, as I make requests for them, too. 

There is so much to pray about…like health and safety issues, but more importantly those who are affected by the recent earthquakes. Imagine how they feel…their homes are in shambles and it is freezing cold. Family and friends are missing, dead, or severely injured. No safe water to drink, no food, and building still falling with more aftershocks, creating even more fear. They might not have any friends left to pray for them. Choose them as your friends…while there is still time. Life may seem unbearable and in fact, it seems like the end of the world to them. Lord, have mercy.

 

Verse of Salvation ~ My mercy and justice are coming soon. My salvation is on the way. My strong arm will bring justice to the nations. All distant lands will look to me and wait in hope for my powerful arm. Look up to the skies above, and gaze down on the earth below. For the skies will disappear like smoke, and the earth will wear out like a piece of clothing. The people of the earth will die like flies, but my salvation lasts forever. My righteous rule will never end! Isaiah 51:5-6

 

© 2023 Text, photos, and illustrations by Mickey M. Hunacek. All rights reserved. 

All scripture quoted from the New Living Translation (NLT) unless otherwise noted. 

New Living Translation copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. 

Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

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