FRIENDSHIP, FROM THE LEAST TO THE ULTIMATE

FRIENDSHIP, FROM THE LEAST TO THE ULTIMATE

Friend is the most variable relationship of any on planet earth. A high profile and popular person may have many friends, which he or she have never met. The richer you are, the more friends you have. These would be very loose uses of the term friend at best. Yet friendship is basic to all other relationships.

No marriage will survive unless the couple have first become friends. No business relationship will last long term, unless the parties are true friends. When a child becomes an adult, a friendship must be established between  mom and child and father and child, each on their own merit, in order for a loving and joyful relationship to continue. Friendship is basic to all joyful and meaningful relationships. 

It is a tragedy to join a man and woman together in marriage that have never become best friends first.  There is nothing holy about the matrimony with out first establishing a strong friendship. Many friendships have a stronger bond than marriages, because a vow does not make a friend. A vow without friendship soon becomes imprisonment. 

There are several categories of friends, the least being an acquaintance, the rest are left up to each party to determine what level of commitment is needed to be called, friend, good friend, best friend and intimate friend. The highest being intimate friend. In the kingdom we set the standard for intimate friend, because it is a friend like no other. In your lifetime, if you find one person of this level you are blessed beyond measure. 

I am the author of this level of friendship. This level of  friend must be My friend first because it requires unconditional love, where nothing you say or do will cancel the friendship. This is the laying down your life friendship. No matter what you have done, or what your past may have included it does not phase this friendship. This friendship forgives before an offense is committed. This friendship tells you the truth, even though it may cost everything.

This friend does not reveal secrets, nor have a personal agenda. This friend is daily intimate with Me, allowing Me to impart to them My attributes. I can then send them forth to be intimate friends with those I choose raise up in the last day. Intimate friends break strongholds with ease, using agreement power, intimate friends carry one another over life's trouble spots. 

They have been described as, a bridge over troubled waters, the wind beneath your wings, water in the desert, and a light at the end of the tunnel. These are those that walk with Me, that carry My presence, and know My voice, they will speak My words and share My love as I arrange their divine appointments. They are supernaturally, natural. They come in all shapes, sizes and colors. They walk with My humility, while exercising My authority.

When you find an intimate friend you will know it, for they will stand out from all other relationships, because it's My unconditional love flowing through a human being that has chosen to die, that I might live through them.

This is the friend that sticks closer than a brother, the one that pours in the oil and the wine, and a, "present help in the time of trouble". It's the, "river of living water, springing up from the belly" I am describing My self, the greater one, living inside a human being. Did I not say, "ye are the light of the world" and the "salt of the earth"? Only those who choose to die are qualified to become intimate friends. I urge you to seek to become one and to cherish the one I send.

Proverbs 14:20 (AMP)
The poor is hated even by his own neighbor, but the rich has many friends.

Proverbs 18:24 (KJV)
A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.

James 2:23 (AMP)
And so the Scripture was fulfilled that says, Abraham believed in (adhered to, trusted in, and relied on) God, and this was accounted to him as righteousness (as conformity to God''s will in thought and deed), and he was called God''s friend.

John 15:13-14 (AMP)
No one has greater love no one has shown stronger affection than to lay down (give up) his own life for his friends. [14] You are My friends if you keep on doing the things which I command you to do.

John 7:38 (AMP)
He who believes in Me who cleaves to and trusts in and relies on Me as the Scripture has said, From his innermost being shall flow continuously springs and rivers of living water.

Matthew 5:13-14 (AMP)
You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste (its strength, its quality), how can its saltness be restored? It is not good for anything any longer but to be thrown out and trodden underfoot by men. [14] You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.

Proverbs 27:6,9 (KJV)
Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. [9] Ointment and perfume rejoice the heart: so doth the sweetness of a man's friend by hearty counsel.

Proverbs 17:17 (AMP)
A friend loves at all times, and is born, as is a brother, for adversity.

1 Corinthians 13:1-13 (AMP)
IF I can speak in the tongues of men and even of angels, but have not love (that reasoning, intentional, spiritual devotion such as is inspired by God''s love for and in us), I am only a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. [2] And if I have prophetic powers (the gift of interpreting the divine will and purpose), and understand all the secret truths and mysteries and possess all knowledge, and if I have sufficient faith so that I can remove mountains, but have not love (God''s love in me) I am nothing (a useless nobody). [3] Even if I dole out all that I have to the poor in providing food, and if I surrender my body to be burned or in order that I may glory, but have not love (God''s love in me), I gain nothing. [4] Love endures long and is patient and kind; love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy, is not boastful or vainglorious, does not display itself haughtily. [5] It is not conceited (arrogant and inflated with pride); it is not rude (unmannerly) and does not act unbecomingly. Love (God''s love in us) does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking; it is not touchy or fretful or resentful; it takes no account of the evil done to it it pays no attention to a suffered wrong. [6] It does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail. [7] Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures everything without weakening. [8] Love never fails never fades out or becomes obsolete or comes to an end. As for prophecy (the gift of interpreting the divine will and purpose), it will be fulfilled and pass away; as for tongues, they will be destroyed and cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away it will lose its value and be superseded by truth. [9] For our knowledge is fragmentary (incomplete and imperfect), and our prophecy (our teaching) is fragmentary (incomplete and imperfect). [10] But when the complete and perfect (total) comes, the incomplete and imperfect will vanish away (become antiquated, void, and superseded). [11] When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; now that I have become a man, I am done with childish ways and have put them aside. [12] For now we are looking in a mirror that gives only a dim (blurred) reflection of reality as in a riddle or enigma, but then when perfection comes we shall see in reality and face to face! Now I know in part (imperfectly), but then I shall know and understand fully and clearly, even in the same manner as I have been fully and clearly known and understood by God. [13] And so faith, hope, love abide faith--conviction and belief respecting man''s relation to God and divine things; hope--joyful and confident expectation of eternal salvation; love--true affection for God and man, growing out of God''s love for and in us, these three; but the greatest of these is love.