Dial soap tastes awful. I should know. I had my mouth washed out with it when I was a very young child. (Yes, parents used to do “horrible” things like that back when I was kid…but keep reading!)

My neighbor was a “cool dude.” He was a teen who wore leather jackets and torn jeans and had an attitude that made grandmothers and mothers quiver at the mere mention of his name. And his sister was my friend, so I spent a lot of time playing in their yard. “CD” (“Cool dude”—I won’t be using names or exact ages or locations!) used some pretty rough language—often!—and when he would swear so freely, his friends would laugh boisterously. I was clueless. I just figured it was a great way to get people to laugh.

So (and you knew this was coming, I’m sure) one afternoon, my mom let me help her paint the porch door with a few brushstrokes of the indoor-outdoor paint. She warned me not to get any on the glass part of the door, because it would be hard to get off. She let me “help” (I’m sure I ended up being more of a detriment of time than a help, but my mom was nice like that) by painting around the outer edge of the lower region of the multi-paned door. Everything went well, and soon I grew weary of the grownup task and handed the paint brush back to my mother.

Mom dipped the brush into the can of paint, gently sliding it along the rim on the way out in order to scrape off the excess paint. As she raised the brush to the door, she painted one or two strokes, and as she turned to move to the other side of the window area, she got some paint on the glass. Expecting her to crack up at my mature, neighbor-inspired hilarity, I boldly told her, “Well, Mommy, now I’m going to have to beat the #@*&%! out of you!” She didn’t laugh. Go figure. Hence, the familiarity with the taste of Dial soap! I was none the worse for wear, but I was much wiser for the experience! Let’s just say my sweet mama used the Dial soap to speak truth into my life about what was right and what was wrong!

Now travel with me back to the present: 2015. I heard this week of a friend—someone who is a believer—joking about a very shallow lifestyle with some  mutual friends of ours. The common friends of ours, who seemed sincerely troubled by this behavior and were sharing it in a truly appropriate way, were saying how sad and empty (and quite honestly, pathetic) this lifestyle choice on our friend’s part clearly was.

My reply was, “So who is speaking truth to [this person]? Who is saying, ‘This isn’t right behavior for one who claims to be a Christian—one like Christ; a Christ follower and imitator’?” As I drove home later, the “paint incident” came to mind. If friends are laughing, treating sin like it’s the act of a hero, and not speaking out, the actions seem “cool” and acceptable. But if spoken to someone who says, “This is not acceptable,” a transformation and a “cleansing” can take place—IF the person recognizes the problem as sin and chooses to turn away from it with God’s help!

The reaction the speaker receives in either moment depends on the audience he or she is surrounding himself or herself with. And sadly, in some cases, we—and by “we,” I mean “I”—speak one way with one group and another way with another group. Or worse yet, we begin spending our time solely with those who make us feel comfortable, gratified, or even “heroic” in our sins.

Oh, trust me, I know it isn’t easy to be the one to say, “Hey, knock it off. God isn’t pleased with that.” If you’re like I am, the reason lies in the fact that I know I’m not perfect either, so I feel like the person will think I’m judging him or her. But what if my mom had worried about whether or not I would like her, think she was being mean, or point out all of her flaws to her? Besides the fact that she had the God-given responsibility to “guide my learning process” (which I can still honestly taste if I stop and think about it!), she was more concerned with bringing about change and with loving me enough to show me the right behavior than she was with anything else. And who knows? Had she not cared enough to lovingly confront me (with a right motivation and a right heart…and a bar of soap!), I might be walking around swearing at people whenever I jolly well please!

It’s all grounded in the motivation. It’s about the desired end result. If you want your friends to be blessed by God, you use the “iron” in your life to sharpen the “iron” in theirs. And if you want your iron sharpened—your spiritual walk, your social choices, your God-focused relationships—you will surround yourself with those who will use their lives to speak truth into yours.

It’s all about choices.

“As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another” (Proverbs 27:17).