Fellowship is essential to a happy life. Time with our close friends increases our sense of belonging and purpose. Friendship boosts happiness and reduces stress. It also improves our self-confidence and self-worth. Friendship is a beautiful blessing from God. Here are five Scriptures about true friendship and what it entails: 

1. Friends love us and are willing to put each other above themselves: “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” John 15:12-15
2. Friends genuinely care for one another. “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” Galatians 6:2
3. Friends are family. “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity.”Proverbs 17:17
4. Friends learn from one another. “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” – Proverbs 27:17 
5. Friends pray for one another. “My intercessor is my friend as my eyes pour out tears to God; on behalf of a man he pleads with God as one pleads for a friend.” Job 16:20-21