God wants you to cultivate good relationships in life and to make wise decisions about the people you are giving yourself to and spending time with. Life is too short to be spent with people who are not in God's plan for your life.

Now I'm not talking about isolating yourself or not showing the love of God to others but I am warning against destructive relationships that you can form with people who are being used by the enemy to sabotage your future! Jesus said we should be wise as serpents, yet harmless as doves. We should guard with all diligence our hearts from external attack.

The problem with forming relationships with people, weather it be a boy friend, girl friend, or someone your spending time with from work or even an unsaved relative, is to remember that if they start to lead you into things that you know are wrong before God, then perhaps they aren't good for you.

Jesus said that what ever a man gets overcome by, the same thing brings him into bondage and slavery. It can start, your relationship with Billy or Doris, as a simple enough situation of spending some harmless time with them, but end up that you compromise all your standards and beliefs for them, to the point that they overcome them and you and you end up bound in that relationship with no way out.

Any relationship gets complicated as soon as emotions get involved.

'Billy is so nice and even his tendency to violence and swearing you can overlook cause he's such a nice person.' Billy may be Mr. Wonderful but good sense would say he needs out of your life.

Don't form imbalanced relationships with the world. There is, in case you've forgotten, a huge difference between the sons and daughters of God and the world. Your soul has been redeemed from the power of the kingdom of darkness and that means you have been raised to a new life.

Don't compromise with the secular friends or family so that their ways rub off on you. Paul said it nice and clearly how we should behave in 2 Cor 6:14.

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. There is a difference you know between you and that world out there that you can get so Cosy with.

"For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness?"

Your supposed to be the light to those around you. Your life should be having the effect on friends around you for good, not the unbelievers on you.

"What accord has Christ with belial? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols?" don't agree with the ways of worldly people, stand for what Jesus means and is. That means if your relationship is affecting you and destroying your Christianity, it's time to get firm with the old self and either get preachy about salvation or remove yourself from the person. It's amazing how a few words about Jesus can put the enemy onto the defensive and end relationships that shouldn't be.

Paul goes on to say "for YOU are the temple of the living God. As God said I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be there God, and they shall be my people therefore come out from among them and be separate says the lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you.

I will be a father to you and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.

No relationship is worth losing one moment of God's presence. The relationship that counts most in your life should be the one you have towards God. Everything else should line up under that fact. We need to be faithful to him who loved us enough to send his only son into this world to die upon a cross for our wrong doings, to bring us back to life.

You are loved by God! That is so special. Don't throw that love away for some flirtation with the world. A world that is set for destruction.

Be true to Jesus and he will provide you with a great partner in life or great friends or family (be that natural or church family which counts more than your natural anyway).

Remember the story about king Jehoshaphat in the bible. He was friends with Ahab and wound up in near fatal trouble for his association with him. For Ahab goes to battle against an army and comes to Jehoshaphat for help. Jehoshaphat says. "my people are as your people and i am with you," but the truth was, Jehoshaphat was a king who loved God, and Ahab was married to Jezebel, worshipped Baal and hated the idea of doing things Gods way. These two men were a very unequally yoked team! The battle starts and in fight Jehoshaphat is dressed as a king and Ahab disguises himself as if he's not one. This leads to the enemy trying and coming close to killing Jehoshaphat as they thought he was Ahab. Gods mercy steps in and they realise their mistake and go after Ahab instead. Point is, if Jehoshaphat had recognised sooner that the relationship with Ahab was a bust and the clear differences between them, he'd of saved himself a lot of pain and a near death experience.

Who ever represents your Ahab today in your life, it's time to wake up and smell the dead rat and end the relationship. Be it hard or painful, you need to safe guard the life Jesus has given you and stay true to your first love. This may not be an easy step to take, but it's the right move and will put your life back on track with God.

The moral of this is, that you should cultivate good relationships with God and your church family and be very wise with the external world. Your purpose is to tell others about Jesus saving love, not to get swallowed back into the darkness they are in yourself.