Relationships

Happy Sunday!

Bishop finished his series on “Relationships” today with three points.

1)      Relationships are our “Witness” – The best way for others to see Jesus is for them to see him in us!  Jesus even told his disciples that men would know who there were by the way they loved one another.  Paul later called us “Ambassadors for Christ”.  An ambassador represents one country while living in another.  The way we live and treat others proves our love or lack of love for Christ Jesus.  Even children learn how to live by what they see in their parents.  Good fathers represent God to their children. A child that has had a good father has little trouble relating to God as father.

2)      Relationships take “Work” – Ask any married couple or ask any parent and they will agree that relationships take work!  We don’t always get along, we don’t always agree, and we may never.  But we do have to compromise, cooperate, and submit to each other.  We can’t choose the family we are born into!  Personally, I would have chosen to be born in a very wealthy family.  But then I would have missed out on summers in Mississippi playing in the dirt with my brother James and my uncle Wallace Jr.  I would have missed out on laughing with my Aunt Elizzie, about her gun and the “sina”.  I would have missed out on the good hearty meals like beans and cornbread, rutabaga, fried corn, and pig ears with mustard.   God knew exactly what he was doing!  He put us right where we needed to be to get what we needed to get, to be who we are destined to be.  Relationships take work!  It takes work to love and care for others, especially when they don’t do what we want them to do.  But have you ever done anything that you shouldn’t have?  Wow, and God still loves you?  Think about how hard it must be for God to love us sometimes.

3)      Relationships are “Worth It” – Ask those same people and they will probably say all these relationships are worth it.  Yes we may fall out with Aunt Pookey, and Uncle John Lee get’s on your last nerve, but after all the of that the relationship is worth it!  Most comedians’ would have absolutely no material if it weren’t for relationships.  Think about your own family.  I know you’re smiling right now! Do you need to make a phone call? 

This is just a personal observation.  If you are a believer you know we will be spending eternity together.  That’s a long time, longer than any family reunion, longer than any road trip in the car with small children, longer than any dinner at your mother-in-law’s house.  We might as well get started now!

Have a wonderful relational week!  Love Cynthia