Q: What am I doing wrong…? I thought that when I received Jesus and was filled with the Holy Spirit, my family and friends would be happy at the change in me. Some are, but others aren’t. In fact, I’m not as close to most of my old friends as I used to be because we have different interests now, and they say they liked “the old me” better. What should I do?
A: From what you write, yours sounds like a typical case of “If you were of the world, the world would love its own” (John 15:19). It costs something to be a real Christian, and it sometimes costs friends–at least at first. This is one of the first and most frequent tests new Christians face: If it comes to that, will they choose Jesus and their newfound faith over old friends? It can be a tough choice, but if you choose Jesus and keep trying to show others His love, sooner or later you’ll find that you have more and closer friends than before–and maybe some old ones, as well.
Take Saint Francis of Assisi (1182?1226), for example. Little is known about his early life, except that he was quite worldly and carefree as a young man and presumably had plenty of like-minded friends. But when he found Jesus, he changed! Francis family disowned him and many former friends wanted nothing to do with him. Undaunted, Francis went about his business of trying to live a Christlike life and share God’s love with others, and soon some of his old friends and quite a few others came to him, wanting to know how they could have the love and happiness they saw in him. Francis’ little group grew into the Franciscans, a religious order that has numbered in the hundreds of thousands over nearly eight hundred years, and touched the lives of countless others. Friends? Millions would be honored to be counted among Saint Francis’ friends!
So just keep sharing Jesus’ love with others and shining brightly for Him, and you’ll no doubt win plenty of new friends. “There is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands for My sake and the Gospels, who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time … and in the age to come, eternal life.” (Mark 10:29,30).
In the meantime, Jesus will be the best friend you could ever imagine, a friend who promises to never leave you, to be with you to the end of the earth, and to stick closer than a brother (John 15:14; Hebrews 13:5; Matthew 28:20; Proverbs 18:24).