The Friendship Factor

What does it take to cultivate a friendship? Because of the rapid growth of social networking such as Twitter, My Space, and Facebook it seems like honest one on one relationships are deteriorating. Many Christians have traded in a genuine face to face relationship for artificial friendships. Perhaps it is just the evidence that we are quickly becoming a more self serving culture. We don't want to take the time to build a relationship because that might require time which we do not have. One of the titles that was given of Jesus was, "friend of sinners." Jesus was friendly to the men and women that were around him. He took the time to invest in them. He loved them, he taught them, and he wasn't afraid to correct them. the bible says that faithful are the wounds of a friend. Proverbs 18:24 says, "A man who has friends must himself be friendly, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother." The friendship Factor is the mindset of consistently building strong friendships. Anyone could build acquaintances, but it takes hard work and the Holy Spirit to be a real friend.