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Four Considerations

Here are four keys to true spiritual friendship.

Growing into Christ (4)

“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

Spiritual Friendship
Aelred of Rievaulx (1109-1167)
“Four considerations seem to hold especially in the case of friendship: love, affection, security, and delight. Friendship involves love when there is a show of favor that proceeds from benevolence. It involves affection when a certain inner pleasure comes from friendship. It involves security when it leads to a revelation of all one’s secrets and purposes without fear or suspicion. It involves delight when there is a certain meeting of the minds – an agreement that is pleasant and benevolent – concerning all matters…”

These seem like reasonable tests for friendship. Where these exist, friends are growing together as disciples of the Lord. Do we truly love one another, so that we are willing to set aside our own interests when necessary, and go to any lengths to help our friend? Do we feel deep affection for one another, reinforcing our commitment and deepening our love? Do we enjoy one another’s company? Do we feel safe in our friend’s confidence? And do we rejoice to find our thoughts running together along similar lines? These criteria, of course, can be found to some extent among friends in the unbelieving world. But when founded upon love for God and held together by Christ’s love for us, then true friendship – which overcomes trials, obstacles, setbacks, and disappointments – can blossom and bear true spiritual fruit.

Suggest some ways for strengthening these criteria with one of your soul friends, then talk with him about it.

Loving God
But what does it mean to love God? What does love for God look like? Our Loving God Taxonomyoffers some useful categories to help you assess the state of your love for God. Download your free copy of this worksheet by clicking here. Included in this download, you’ll find our Loving Neighbors Taxonomy, which can help you assess the state of your friendship with others.

Friends help friends take prayer seriously
Prayer provides a context for men to grow together in love for God and one another. But getting men to pray with any consistency or depth – much less to pray together – can be a challenge. The resources of our Men at Prayer program could help you enlist, equip, and encourage your friends to seek the Lord more consistently in prayer. Watch this brief videoto learn about free resources available through our men’s prayer movement ministry.

The Fellowship of Ailbe is supported through the generous and faithful gifts of those who benefit from and believe in our work. Does the Lord want to use you in this way? Please look to Him in prayer over this question. You can contribute to The Fellowship of Ailbe by using the Contribute button at our website, or by sending your gift to The Fellowship of Ailbe, 19 Tyler Drive, Essex Junction, VT 05452. Thank you.

Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
All quotations from Aelred of Rievaulx, Spiritual Friendship, tr. By Mark F. Williams (Scranton: The University of Scranton Press, 1994, 2002).

T.M. Moore

T. M. Moore is principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He and his wife, Susie, make their home in the Champlain Valley of Vermont.
Books by T. M. Moore

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