He who loves purity of heart, and whose speech is gracious, will have the king as his friend. Proverbs 22:11 (ESV)
Our world is in a crisis when it comes to relationships. Despite a desire for trustworthy, close friends, many report that they don’t have them. According to a study cited in the June Sociological Review, one quarter of all Americans have no close confidants. However, the Bible is the greatest relationship book ever written and it can empower us to change these statistics by following its principles.
Over the past two days we have been discussing reasons why people struggle to make friends. Today we will cover two keys to building close friendships from Proverbs 22:11.
1. Check your motives. Some develop friendships for what they can get, using people to get ahead or because they have something they want. We need to have a pure heart; our motives for becoming someone’s friend need to be right. We can’t build solid friendships based on purely self-serving motives.
2. Speak genuine words of encouragement. Even if we have our motives right, ‘gracious’ speech has to be intentional. To build great friendships, we need to make a point of encouraging people and helping to build them up.
Although you cannot be dependent on others to meet your every need, God has designed you to need a number of friendships with trustworthy people. The principles in His Word empower you to make the kind of friends who will stick with you through thick and thin!