Sunday, April 25
One Life to Live Part 2 - Relationships
Matthew 5:21-24 Anger in relationships
Reconciliati
Matthew 7:3-5 Speck of sawdust in brother’s eye/plank in your own eye
Romans 15:7 “Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to
bring praise to God
Proverbs 27:17 “As iron sharpens iron, so one an sharpens another”
Whether you are an extrovert, an introvert or somewhere in between, outgoing or shy, bubby or reserved, you were created, designed by God to have relationships.
If we only had one month to live, we would suddenly realize just how much we need other people as well as how much they need us.
Brought out in the story of creation:
Gen. 2:18 God says “it is not good for the men to be alone, I will make a helper suitable for him.”
John 13:34 “love one another”
We were created for relationships but relationships take work, time, and patient understanding.
No matter how difficult they may be, we come to realize that God places people in our lives for a reason but He also places us in their lives for a reason.
First and foremost is our relationship to the Lord.
-With His love and our relationship with Him as a foundation, relating to others takes on a right perspective and a new dimension.
-When things are right with God, you no longer look to other relationships for something they were never designed for-approval or validation.
-There is pressure when someone wants a relationship to mean more to them than humanly possible.
Key Things to Realize:
-“People can never fill our ache to be loved the way God can”
-Man’s love has limits
-God’s love has none
-It’s unconditional
-No strings attached
If we had one month to live, we would all be looking for ways, praying for opportunities to build bridges, to bring about healing, to enjoy our most important relationships.
Even in Matt. 7 speck and plank and mote and beam lessons are so important.
We can get so fixated on pointing out everyone else’s faults, problems, and character flaws that we totally miss the “planks” sticking out in our own lives.
Our role is not to judge but to be healing agents!
-Then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye
Never says to ignore it, goal is healing, not criticism!
“In our families we can be so quick to point out the faults in everybody else and overlook the glaring weaknesses in ourselves. I’ve discovered that if I concentrate on my own shortcomings and let God give me the courage to face my own, faults, character flaws, and mistakes, then I don’t feel the urgency to help others see their specks. If I forget about trying to change everybody else and simply work on letting God change me, then the people in my life are much more open to me.”
I guess you could ask yourself the question: “How often are you tempted to point out the problems in other people’s life?”
-That will tell you what you have to work on and overcome.
Successful relationships include overcoming obstacles, going beyond our differences and practicing forgiveness.
Book “One Month To Live” talks about three mountains that hinder relationships
1. Mountain of Misunderstanding
When you have the right perspective on a relationship you look beyond personal differences and misunderstandings that take place and concentrate on building relationships.
Romans 15:7 “Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you in order to bring
praise to God.”
Place where we stop trying to change people and start trying to understand them.
“Acceptance means to stop trying to change my spouse and start cherishing them.”
We all have that selfish tendency to try and change people to make them more like us.
God is the author of lasting, genuine change in a person’s life.
Genesis 32:26 “I won’t let you go Lord unless you change me”
We learn to accept one another as we’ve been accepted.
2. Me-First Mountain
Place relationships come to where we say in our hearts “I’ll meet your needs but only if you meet my needs first.”
-One of the statements in relationships that many never overcome and never get past.
With One Month to Live, we realize the pettiness of this attitude; we invest sacrificially in our relationships and overcome this mountain. We die to our selfish desires and are free to give into the lives of others.
We are free to give expecting nothing in return.
3. The Mountain of Mistakes
-We all have faults
-We all mess up and make mistakes
-We have all been hurt by another’s words or actions
-We have all hurt others by our words or actions
Forgiveness is crucial to every relationship.
Ephesians 4:26-27 Don’t let the sun go down on your wrath (while you are still angry)
and do not give the devil a foothold.
Anger and unforgiveness quickly harden into bitterness and can destroy a relationship quickly.
Col. 3:13 Bear with one another and forgive whatever grievances you may have against
one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.
Someone once wisely said that to forgive is to set a prisoner free and do discover the prisoner was you.
God says you need to forgive for your own sake because bitterness blocks the blessings He wants to pour into your life.
Where do we get the strength to forgive?
-through the realization that we were forgiven first by the Lord through the sacrifice
of the cross.
Remember
Forgiveness is not saying you weren’t hurt, not making light of a wrong done, but instead in honesty and humility saying what you did hurt me deeply but I can choose to forgive you by God’s grace and power.
When we truly love the people in our lives, we are determined to overcome these mountains to pour ourselves into those we love and to see strength and healing flow.
Quote: “Our investment in the people we care about is the only legacy that has the power to endure beyond our lifetime.”
What is it that we are doing that will endure beyond our lifetime?