The ways our homes are designed tell the story of how much we value me over we. I am particularly struck by the fact that we so often don’t even know our neighbors. Many of you don’t know the names of the four people that live next door to you. That’s shameful. How inwardly focused must we be to not even know their names?! Thank God for the many people in our church who practice the gift of hospitality God has given them. This opens up avenues for friendships to form, blossom and grow!

How many friends do You Have?

Only 10% of men ever have any real friends. Wow. That’s incredible. That’s depressing and wrong. What about you? Do you have real friends or just one real friend? I think that sometimes we fear that people will see us as homosexuals. This is true and I bet we’ve all felt this way. Perhaps we shouldn’t care so much about what other people think about us and instead see their questions as opportunities to share about our faith, our church and/or the God-man that we love and serve.

By using Jesus as an example, (for Jesus was the manliest of men!) we must surround ourselves with close friends to be intimately close to. Think about it: Jesus chose 12 guys to be on a three-year road trip with him. They walked together, ate together, ministered together, prayed together. They lived life together in a mutually intimate way that we would be quick to scorn if only it weren’t Jesus!Friendship is not optional. We need Christian male friends who have a same-sex understanding of the serpentine passages of your heart.

David And Jonathan BBFs

This leads into the example of David and Jonathan. David and Jonathan are the primary example of biblical male friendship! It is a particularly good example, because both Jonathan and David were manly men. They were warriors. Blood-covered Jonathan was one tough hombre! Blood-smeared stood holding the great gory head [of Goliath], talking calmly with Jonathan’s father, Saul. Did you know that Jonathan and David were likely 30 years apart, a challenge to our idea of peer-only friendships. This example is also outstanding because there is no doubt that these two men should have been jealous rivals looking each to undermine the other. Instead, they demonstrated five character qualities that I will now briefly comment on:

Mutuality

• Mutuality – These two men shared a common fierce love of Yahweh, the God of Israel. However different their personalities or interests may have been, they shared something far deeper. Likewise, we share a common bond with the Christian men in our church: the blood of Jesus has paid for our sin and washed us anew! We are blood brothers in the truest sense! Let this cause us to overlook all the petty requirements we normally put in the way of being friends with other men.

Love

• Love – Now we tread on weird ground for American males. It’s okay to love our wives, our daughters, our mothers, our sisters, our sports teams, our cars, but somehow it’s not okay to love our guy friends. Frankly, that’s ridiculous, especially considering the previous paragraph on mutuality. We must sincerely love each other with a God-given love that is deep and abiding.

Commitment

• Commitment – This principle is described as “my life for your life.” We see this illustrated in Jonathan’s astonishing covenant with David. Jonathan was the son of the king, the prince of Israel, the heir to the throne! And yet he humbled himself and covenanted with a young shepherd boy, committing his own life and the life of his family into David’s hands.

Loyalty

• Loyalty – I am a die-heart “SPURS” fan. And I say that semi-seriously because so many sports “fans” just jump on the nearest bandwagon of the NBA winners. Those fans have not starved through long years (even decades!) of losing and still stayed by their teams, putting up with mockery and heartbreak. Okay, so you non-sports lovers think I’m an idiot now. Maybe. Or maybe there is a nugget of truth in our oft-shifting loyalties that inevitably leads to disloyalty to those left behind. Loyalty is indispensable to the survival of friendship. Jonathan was disloyal to his own father and even to his own chance at kingship (1 Sam. 20:31) in order to be loyal to David, which was in fact being loyal to the sovereign God who had chosen David as the man after his own heart.

Encouragement

• Encouragement – Often we think of women being encouragers and perhaps we subtly think that that’s the way God made them. But the Bible consistently calls us to encourage (1 Thess. 4:18, 5:11; 1 Tim. 5:1; Heb. 10:24-25) and we can do this if we are involved with friends that encourage us and that also need encouragement. This is of course more than a mere slap on the back accompanied by platitudes. It should be an encouragement to look to God to strengthen a brother in God.

A call to prayer…

Let me end with a call to prayer, friendliness, work, affirmation, listening, acceptance and hospitality. I’ve already burdened you with more than enough but let me briefly say that while searching for friends it is imperative that we are friendly ourselves. We shouldn’t do this in a fake, manipulative sense, but in a prayerful and concerned way as we work at making, keeping and building friendships.

Let me end with this comment. If you are a regular church attender but do no more than attend morning worship, you are depriving yourself and the church of the friendship so desperately needed by all. Men, come to church to receive and to give. There are many ways of doing this: getting involved in ministry at Destiny Church, joining a community group, asking an older/younger man to lunch in order to start a discipling/mentoring relationship, offering ideas for men’s ministry, attending Destiny Church events, etc. There are so many ways to do this, but it will take initiative and work on our part! God has made us his friends, let’s make friends with God’s friends!

https://manlytraining.com/2018/01/26/discipline-godliness-destiny/

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Your pledge will help me continue to put the considerable time and effort into each and every post that makes Manly Training what it is.

So thank you from the bottom of my heart. I pray every day for each and every one of you who take the time to read my words. You are a blessing.

Thank You!

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© 2017 MANLY TRAINING

Patreon Members:

Patreon allows you to pledge as little as $1 a month, and in return you’ll get some pretty cool rewards, ranging from your name and blog on my MTM VIP page, exclusive content, and PODCAST VERSIONS of my posts!

Just Click here and go to Patreon to start receiving

exclusive material from Manly Training.

We Won’t Change, I Promise.

Manly Training is still going to be EXACTLY what it is now — New Posts every Tuesday and new Podcasts every Monday. Patreon perks are simply that: extra perks!

I have big plans for Manly Training– including a book AND a YouTube channel.

Your pledge will help me continue to put the considerable time and effort into each and every post that makes Manly Training what it is.

So thank you from the bottom of my heart. I pray every day for each and every one of you who take the time to read my words. You are a blessing.

Thank You!

STAY CONNECTED BY EMAIL. CLICK HERE

© 2017 MANLY TRAINING

Published by Eduardo Quintana

I am an author and a speaker. I am the creator and CEO of Manly Training, an organization designed to bring Men to Christ and to Honor and Empower biblical Manliness. View all posts by Eduardo Quintana