Day 13: All about relationships
The more I am blessed to answer the call of ministry, the more I realize that the Gospel is all about relationships. John Wesley is quoted saying, “True religion is a social thing.” Christianity is all about our relationship with God through our faith in His Son and letting that relationship shape how we treat every other relationship we have! In fact, Jesus tells us as much. There was a day the Pharisees and Sadducees were trying to stump Him and Matthew tells us this:
Matthew 22: 34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
To sum up verse 40 in layman’s terms, if we want to follow the commands of God, we will love Him with everything we have and we will love our neighbors as much as we love ourselves.
I sometimes get discouraged at the state of the relationships in our current cultural climate, even in our churches. Broken homes, families at odds, grandparents raising their grandchildren. Sometimes it is a little overwhelming to try to figure out how we are supposed to share the Gospel in such a fractured world. However, let me remind you what John says about Jesus:
John 1: 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
In a world of broken relationships and heartache, someone who loves the Lord with all they have and loves others can be a light that will begin to shine in their darkness. We can be the love of Jesus in their lives that turns them around and leads them to Him!
Now, it is easy to say or to think “I am just going to tell them the Gospel and it will fix them.” Yes, the Gospel will change their lives, but we will not be able to share it in a meaningful way apart from having a relationship with them. Sometimes we Christians try to pop in like Marry Poppins and give them the spoon full of sugar to help the medicine go down, but that’s not how these things work. For our message to have credibility, we must have a positive impact on them through our relationship. I have another Wesley quote for you, and full transparency I believe the clergy must do better in these areas as well.
“Really, the devil would rejoice more if he saw you preach than if he saw you live out the gospel in front of someone one-on-one.” – Wesley
If we want to really have an impact on our friends and families, it’s going to happen through relationships with them.
When we were talking about the type of fruit that our salvation should produce back on day 9, a few of them really stick out in our relationship building desire. Acts of compassion or mercy, generosity, and peacemaking or reconciliation all come to mind. There may need to be some work to be done before someone is receptive to the Gospel and that’s why we are called the hands and feet of Jesus! Listen, sometimes being the hands of Jesus means we get a little messy. After all, He did touch lepers. For us, investing in the lives of those God has put in our influence might be tough work, but the work is so very important. If we can be their introduction to Jesus, they can leave their life of brokenness and enter into the life of joy.
I will leave you today with Paul’s charge to the church of Corinth as a reminder that God can take the perishing and make them imperishable if we will stand firm in our efforts to use our relationship a catalyst for the gospel in their lives!
1 Corinthians 15:53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. 54 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:
“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
55 “O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”
56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
58 Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
We can see death lose it power and sin lose its sway in the lives of those around us if we are steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord!