Our Bible verse for today: “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” Proverbs 27:17 (NIV)
Our thought for today: “A wise person has good counselors.”
I was fortunate to come to faith in Christ during the hey-day of the Promise Keepers movement. Right at the time I was beginning my relationship with Jesus, across the nation men were filling huge stadiums for weekend-long crusades. There was lots of great worship music, powerful teaching, and it was all designed to bring men closer to the Lord and closer to each other.
One of the key lessons taught by Promise Keepers was the need for fellowship and accountability. God doesn’t call us to be “Lone Ranger Christians”. None of us are supposed to be a spiritual Rambo, living off the land, “eating things that would make a Billy Goat puke”, and needing help from nobody.
The Christian life is to be lived in close fellowship with other Christians and we are to make ourselves accountable to others. Each of us needs to have a few close Christian friends who are mature in their faith and wise in their ways. These should be people who have our permission to ask hard questions and to speak straight truth to us. A friend who simply tells us what we want to hear is no friend at all. We need people in our lives who will tell us what we need to hear, even if we don’t want to hear it.
For this Father’s Day weekend devotional, I’ve chosen a classic verse of Scripture often used in men’s groups, Proverbs 27:17. It speaks of how one Christian sharpens another by speaking truth and enforcing accountability. This is important. One of the most common ways God guides us is through the wise counsel of Christian friends.
However, when you seek counsel from other Christians make sure they are mature and make sure they are wise. Your counselors should be people you admire and who are living lives that honor Christ. They should be people who know the Bible well, who have a rich prayer life, and who live what they profess to believe. It’s also helpful if they have personal experience with the issue you’re seeking the Lord’s guidance about.
If you’re not in the habit of seeking counsel from other Christians, I can say with certainty you are missing some (or even a lot) of the guidance God is trying to give you. One of God’s favorite ways to guide us is through the wise counsel of other Christians.
Oak Hill Baptist Church