Jesus will be revealing five types of relationships. We will be learning how to identify them so we can see how to relate to them during our times of contact with them. These five types of relationships are: Business Relationships, Casual Relationships, Personal Friends, Sincere Friends, and Mentor Friends.

There are people we know on a business or casual level that are open to real friendship. We interact with people we do business with; we also have casual friends we have gained through our family and relatives, through our jobs, through school, from our neighborhood, in our church, and through sports. True friendship usually starts out from a business or casual relationship and then grows into a deeper friendship. However, this isn’t necessarily a Christian friendship and relationship. They are developed from these true, deeper friendships.

A business relationship is a relationship where you only talk to the person about their products or services. You don’t try to talk to them about anything that doesn’t pertain to the business at hand. These relationships can be at work, in stores, on the phone, by mail, or through internet communications. They may be one time contacts or you may see them on a regular basis. Business relationships that have the potential of becoming casual friendships are those that give you an opportunity for repeated contact.

A casual friendship is a friendship where you and someone else talk about those things you have in common. They can start out with subjects about the weather, sports, things about the company you work for, fellow workers you work around, familiar places and experiences, people you know, and many other common things.

A casual friend may become very open and honest about their family, their business, their successes and failures, and all kinds of general personal things. But, it will need to grow to the place where they feel comfortable talking about their problems, struggles, or issues of life. As long as the conversation remains on subjects that have nothing to do with any of their problems, struggles, or issues of life, it remains a casual relationship.

As you spend time developing casual friendships with various people, Jesus will open the doors for you to develop a personal friendship with some of them. Some of your business acquaintances and causal friends will finally open up and tell you something about things they are struggling with. It is at that point where you will need Jesus to give you special words; He will help you say thing that will help them continue to feel comfortable with the fact that they are opening up. He will help you encourage them, reward them, and demonstrate real concern for them and the problems they are going through.

After you have given personal friend a lot of time to share their problems with you, and after you have asked plenty of questions that have helped you clearly understand what they are GOING through, you will be able to use this opportunity to share with them a similar problem you WENT through and have been able to get the answers and help with.

There are business relationships and casual friendships where people are sincerely looking for the answers to their problems; and, they are willing to enter into the provisions that Jesus has given you. These are people who will eventually become some of your best and closest friends. The enjoyment and fellowship that comes from these friendships make it worth it for you to learn how to be ready to share those things Jesus has done for you.

Like with personal friendships, sincere friends are people who are willing to open up and share the difficult areas of their lives with you. AND, they are ALSO willing to listen to you as you tell them about areas of your life where you WENT through a similar difficulty and found the solutions. However, sincere friends will ALSO be willing to listen to you as you tell them what you DID to get that solution.

A personal friend will be receptive to telling you their problems; a sincere friend will do that and will listen to your stories about how you went through similar things; but, mentor friends will:

1. Tell you some of the problems they are going through.


2. Will listen to your story about all the things you went through.


3. AND will allow you to tell them what you did to get help.


4. AND will also be willing to start doing what you did so they can get what you received from Jesus.

When you finally meet them and are able to establish a mentoring friendship with them, that is the time when true friendship begins.

From this study, you will learn how to develop a lot of business relationships, casual friendships, personal friendships, sincere friendships, and mentoring friendships.

As Jesus helps you receive His character and attitudes into your personality, He helps you become a much more enjoyable person to be around. Your abilities to care about other people will open your eyes to ways of being helpful and personable with all you meet.