Choose your friends wisely.

Proverbs 27:6 WOUNDS OF A FRIEND CAN BE TRUSTED BUT AN ENEMY 

MULTIPLIES KISSES

How many people do you know that will tell you the truth even if it hurts?  How many will do what needs to be done even if you get mad at them?  How many of you are the ones that are doing/saying the things that insult your friends?  That’s what this verse is all about.  In my own life, I had people that would tell me that my stupidity was someone else’s fault.  That’s not to say that they were all my enemy but I can tell you that an enemy would have done the same thing.  I know that from experience.  Now let us think about the one that didn’t do the easy thing and told someone something that might hurt their feelings.  That person can be trusted to tell the truth.  Jesus never pulled any verbal punches when he spoke to someone.  Take for instance anytime that Jesus spoke to the Pharisees.  In the 23rd chapter of Matthew, he even went as far as to call them hypocrites (v. 14 among others), blind guides (v. 16), and brood of vipers (v. 33).  He was not automatically condemning them on the spot.  However, the way that they were behaving then would have most assuredly kept them from the kingdom of heaven.  More than that, they were keeping people from the kingdom by their behavior because nobody wanted to have anything to do with them.  Back to the original point that I was trying to make, sometimes you have to be told something that you may not like.  Sometimes you have to tell someone something that they may not like.  However, having the wisdom contained in this short piece of Scripture can give us the ability to determine who really has our best interest at heart.