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Friendship of Christ’s Friends, August 16
I am a companion of all them that fear thee, and of them that keep
thy precepts.
Psalm 119:63
.
It is natural to seek companionship. Everyone will find companions
or make them. And just in proportion to the strength of the friendship,
will be the amount of influence which friends will exert over one another
for good or for evil....
Young persons who are thrown into one another’s society may make
their association a blessing or a curse. They may edify, bless, and
strengthen one another, improving in deportment, in disposition, in
knowledge; or, by permitting themselves to become careless and un-
faithful, they may exert only a demoralizing influence.
It is by leading the followers of Christ to associate with the ungodly
and unite in their amusements, that Satan is most successful in alluring
them into sin.... The followers of Christ are to separate themselves
from sinners, choosing their society only when there is opportunity to
do them good. We cannot be too decided in shunning the company of
those who exert an influence to draw us away from God. While we
pray, “Lead us not into temptation,” we are to shun temptation, so far as
possible.
By the choice of evil companions many have been led step by step
from the path of virtue into depths of disobedience and dissipation to
which at one time they would have thought it impossible for them to
sink.
We may refuse to be corrupted, and place ourselves where evil
association shall not corrupt our hearts. Individually the youth should
seek for association with those who are toiling upward with unfaltering
steps.
Better than all the friendship of the world is the friendship of Christ’s
redeemed.
The warmth of true friendship, the love that binds heart to heart, is a
foretaste of the joys of heaven.
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