Friendship, Humility, and Limits

True friendship is faithful in small things. You find everyone is your friend when things are well.

True friends are not absent when things are poor. They remember the details of our lives and begin to understand us even when we do not speak.

At times we are encouraged to do more and more in the church for God. Doing more for God is always noble as long as more is more. At times the church encourages us to interact more and always do more with others.

At times doing more can begin to harm our friendships. There can be an issue with having too many friendships. The friendships end up becoming a long list of acquaintances. Many people have had the issue of losing four or five dear friends for the sake of two hundred acquaintances.

We can be friendly with everyone but not friends with everyone. We can show the love of Christ to everyone but we cannot deeply invest in everyone.

It often takes humility to see our limits. Not a false humility which sees that we can do nothing. That is not humility; it's a shirking of responsibility. True humility sees what it can accomplish and does it, but accepts its limits.

True humility is not a self depreciation but an acceptance of our abilities and limits. It sees what we can or may be able do do and acts while recognizing the limits of our time and energy.

Often Jesus went into solitude to pray. There was more ministry that could be done, but more is not always more in ministry.

Responsibility

Often life does not go as people wish. It is easy to be faithful in our work or continue to make smart decisions when things are going our way.

Often things do not go our way in life however. We often need to continue to make the responsible decisions even when we we are not entirely happy.

Humility in practice often means continuing to be faithful in the work in our life if we feel gripped or slighted. At times faithfulness to God means setting aside our feelings.

Often doing the right thing is not the easy thing. Much of the difficulty is that often doing the right thing cuts at our pride. Sometimes righteousness requires setting aside our feelings.

Of course we can and should seek joy in life. God wishes for us to be happy. His intent is for our good.

At times life is difficult and perseverance is of course necessary. Responsibility is often setting aside how we feel and doing the right thing, whatever it is in certain situations.

Responsibility of the Highest Degree

Responsibility at its highest level requires us to take responsibility for things which are not our responsibility. If we see this or that wrong or this or that wrong or issue we can fix we take responsibility if it is in our power to do so.

It is obvious we cannot do everything. We are cannot fix every problem but it should not stop us from doing what we can. To have great responsibility in life is to be aware that there are times we may need to act to fix things problems others creating.

Jesus is of course the greatest example of this responsibility. He took responsibility for sin when he himself had no sin.

There are conservative churches which have concern about speaking of Jesus as an example in life. There is some basis for the concern in that Jesus is first our savior and our God and only there after our example.

We cannot see Jesus as our example properly before we understand his nature, life, work, and stature seated at the right hand of God. But Jesus himself commands us to see him as our example, "a new commandment I give you that you love each other as I have loved you."

You see the movement in some conservative churches to avoid speaking of Jesus as an example because it feels risky is unbiblical. You cannot have concern for the teaching of God and then decide that you find the teaching of God too risky to speak of.

I am to a degree overstating my case, but not by much. If you begin to speak of Jesus as an example in many conservative churches you begin to see people cringe.

I believe the conservative church has more correct than the liberal church but at times the conservative church is so concerned with being "conservative" that it plays theology far safer than the Bible does to the extent of ignoring the word of God. Being biblical is to find what the Bible finds important.