How to Pick Healthy Friendships

Beloved, are you lonely or feeling isolated? Are you trying to do life alone? If so, Jesus wants that to end today. He wants you to have friends—close, covenant friends. And in this article, part of our Healing from Friend Wounds series, we’ll explore how to pick healthy friendships.

Not every friendship is a good thing; you have to pick healthy friendships in order to have peace in your life, and in order to really be blessed by your friendships the way God intends for you to be. But, God will help you do it! There are a few things you need to know first, however.

First, I want to show you from Scripture that friendship matters to God.

Friendship is important to Jesus, and it’s a key part of His plans for your life! He even goes so far as to actually identify Himself as your Friend, as long as you are numbered among those who obey Him. Look at what He says in John 15:13-15:

“Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you” (John 15:13-15 NKJV).

Yes: if you do what Jesus commands you, then He calls you His friend. And if He has chosen to be your Friend Himself, then you know that this concept of friendship is holy; that it is from the Lord; and that it is part of His plans for your life.

But, friendship doesn’t stop there.

God wants you to have human friends too—friends who enter into healthy, covenant relationship with you. Look at what He tells us in Ecclesiastes 4:9-12:

“Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who is alone when he falls, for he has no one to help him up. Again, if two lie down together, they will keep warm; but how can one be warm alone? Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him. And a threefold cord is not quickly broken” (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 NKJV).

Jesus is your Friend, and He wants you to have healthy, happy, humans-doing-life-with-you friends too.

But what does a healthy friendship look like?

In the last installment of this series, we talked about how Jesus modeled friendship for us through the way He shared life with His disciples during His earthly ministry. Healthy friendship looks like “doing life together,” including:

• chasing God together,
• sharing one another’s confidences,
• lifting one another up and encouraging one another,
• eating together,
• doing fun things,
• working together,
• fellowshipping together, and more.

No matter what you love to do, do what you love (as long as it’s holy)—but do it in a group of like-minded friends.

And how do you find people who live that way? How can you pick people who will be real friends, and who will “do life” with you?

Ah, therein lies the rub. There’s definitely a method to it, and the method is this:

You have to pick people who walk in the same spirit as you do.

This is what God Himself said in Amos 3:3:

“Can two walk together, unless they are agreed?”

And also, look at what He tells us in 1 Corinthians 2:14:

“But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14 NKJV).

Therefore, if you’re going to chase God, love God, serve God, and pursue your destiny and calling in God, you have to find people who feel, act, and live the same way:

• People who love God and are sold out to Him;
• People who want to act like they love God, being kind and gentle to others;
• People who want to represent God well, walking in integrity—which includes being godly when they are alone AND when they are with people;
• People who are trustworthy;
• People who embrace confidence, walking in their identity in Christ, and who embrace FREEDOM and speaking LIFE—and who are not critical, toxic, manipulative, controlling, or insecure in any way.

If you love God, you aren’t going to be able to be close with someone who is not of like faith and spirit with you.

If you love God, you also aren’t going to be able to develop a close, healthy friendship with someone who is more concerned with the things of this world than they are with the things of God. The natural man cannot receive the things of God—and YOU are a “thing of God”; so, if someone else prefers to walk in their flesh, rather than being totally surrendered to Holy Spirit, Jesus, and Father God, they are not going to be able to receive you, identify with you, or love you.

And friend, it’s sad but true: You’re just setting yourself up for disaster, hurt, and heartbreak if you even try to make people your friend if they are not of the same spirit with you.

This doesn’t mean you can’t have acquaintances who don’t love God.

Certainly, you can and will have lots of acquaintances who don’t know God—or even who don’t walk in the same spirit toward God that you do. However, those people are only that: acquaintances, or even just “ministry opportunities.” Witness to those people; show them the love of Jesus; preach the Gospel to them and minister to them.

However, don’t classify people who are a ministry assignment, or a witnessing assignment, as a real friendship. They’ll break your heart if you do, because you’ll think they are loyal and true to you, the way you are to them, loving them with all your heart—and then you’ll find out later that they are none of those things.

Therefore, always just keep the main thing the main thing in friendship: walking as Jesus walked, not casting your pearls before swine, and remembering the difference between covenant friends for eternity versus temporary acquaintances or ministry opportunities. They are not the same thing at all.

Long story short:

If you have given your life to Jesus Christ, then people who walk in the natural—who are not filled with the Holy Spirit, and who have not given their lives to Jesus Christ or that haven’t bothered to try to conform their lives to Christ in any way—are not going to be able to do life with you. They’re not going to be able to receive or identify with what’s in your life, the dreams in your heart, and the gifting and calling of God on your life. They’re not tuned in to Holy Spirit.

So, if you are tuned in to the voice of Holy Spirit, that person will have no concept of the reality that you live in.

Of course, that doesn’t give anybody an excuse to be hoity-toity.

We can’t ever be proud or arrogant and say, “I can’t be friends with you because I’m tuned into the Holy Spirit.” No; that would be the antithesis of being tuned into the Holy Spirit! But, you do have to be careful and not set yourself up for heartbreak, trying to be best buddies with someone that cannot receive the things of the Spirit because those things are foolishness to that person.

Just remember: How can two walk together unless they be agreed? THAT is how you choose and develop healthy, holy, happy friendships that will be life-giving on all sides, and which will be anointed by God’s Holy Spirit—and which will be a blessing to your life.

Here are some questions to ask yourself when evaluating any potential or developing friendship:

• Do they love God like I love God?
• Are they seeking Him and doing all they can to obey Him in all things?
• Are they a person of the Word and of prayer? (They are not real friend material if not.)
• Is there an inner woundedness in this person that prevents them from being healthy, and from interacting with people in a healthy way?
• Are they walking in love, purity, and freedom?
• Are they going in life where you are also going?
• Do you have real heart-level things in common?
• Is this a two-way friendship, or is one person (e.g. you) doing all the work, all the inviting, all the contacting, etc.?

Friendships can ebb and flow depending on many factors in life.

However, it is God’s will for you to have friends—healthy, happy friends who will be a blessing to your life, and you will be a blessing to theirs. Some friendships really are for a season, but other friends are for a lifetime. Either way, God wants you to have a close set of friends that you do life with for the rest of your life.

The key is just to pick people who are healthy, who love God and are seeking Him the way you are–including by obeying Him–and who share the same vision for friendship and community as you do.

Do you want healthy, happy friendships? Are you willing to be discerning in your friendships, only pursuing relationships with people who are of like spirit with yourself, and who love God as you do? If so, leave a comment below!