After more than a year of cancelled retreats and speaking engagements, I’ve been speaking at churches once again. It’s been a sweet time of meeting my sisters in Christ in other places around the country. One of the topics I’m frequently asked to speak on is that of our relationships with one another in the church, based on my book Closer than a Sister. In that book, I wrote about our friendships with one another in the church, how the Bible describes those relationships, and what sets them apart from other friendships we might have. I think that now, more than ever, we see our need for the body of Christ—for our relationships with one another in the church.
I recently participated in a Zoom meeting with a book club in Melbourne, Australia where a group of women recently read Closer than a Sister. We talked about the difference between our friendships with those who are not in Christ and those who are—because there is a difference and an important one. While our non-Christian friends can truly care about us and serve us in practical and needed ways, there is one thing they cannot do for us. While they may love us and accept us, there is one need they cannot meet for us. While they may share a long history with us that our Christian friends might not share, there is a future hope they do not share with us.
What makes our friendships with Christians stand apart from our non-Christian friendships is that our Christian friends long to see us make it home. They want to see us reach the finish line and meet our Savior face to face. They long to see us healed and whole and sanctified. That’s because the friendships we share with other believers is a spiritual one. It goes deeper than even our biological relationships with the members of our family; we share the blood of Christ and are united together for all eternity. We will spend forever together worshipping our Savior face to face.
As we’ve well learned over the last year and a half, we need other people in our lives. God did not create us to be independent people, living as islands unto ourselves. Rather, he created us to be dependent upon him, and interdependent upon one another. This is especially true of the church. The Apostle Paul likens the church to a human body, where Christ is the head and we make up the parts (Rom. 12:4-5). Each part is united together and needs the other parts to function. This means our friendships with those in the body of Christ are crucial. They are fundamental to our life of faith. We simply cannot do life apart from them.
Our Christian friends are on the same path with us to eternity; they walk beside us in that journey. They see us when we stumble and fall and they help us get back up again. Sometimes, they carry us until we can walk on our own. When they see us wander from the path, they call out to us to return. When they see danger ahead, they warn us. They encourage, exhort, and equip us to move forward in the faith. And we do the same for them.
While we will have friendships in many areas of our lives—through school, work, neighborhoods, hobbies and more—our Christian friendships stand apart as unique from the others. Only these relationships are eternal. We certainly shouldn’t forsake one for the other, because after all, the Lord calls us to bring the gospel to the ends of the earth. Lord willing, he will bring our unbelieving friends into the Kingdom with us—let us pray to that end! But we also need to remember just how important our Christian friendships are and take the time to invest in them. To cultivate them. To nurture them. Because we need these friendships and they need us.
“Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love” (Eph. 4:15-16).
