What Can the Gospel of Jesus Christ Do For Our Relationships?

building healthy relationships_t_nvGood morning, Metro! I hope your week is off to a grace filled start. I had a number of wonderful interactions after the service on Sunday about relationships. They were encouraging conversations. Isn't it refreshing to know some of the backstories on the people in Scripture, and to know that they had to work through so many of the same dynamics as we do when it comes to building relationships with one another? Relationships are hard work! Let's reflect on what R. Kent Hughes said again:

“For those of us who claim the name of Christ, there are two distinct courses of life available. One is to cultivate a small heart. It is by far the safest way to go because it minimizes the sorrows of life. If our ambition is to avoid the troubles of life, the formula is simple: minimize entangling relationships, do not give yourself to people, carefully avoid elevated and noble ideals. If we will do this, we will escape a host of afflictions. Many people, even some who profess to be Christians, get through life with a minimum of tribulation by having small hearts. The other path is to cultivate a ministering heart like that of the Apostle Paul. Open yourself to others and you will become susceptible to an index of sorrows scarcely imaginable to a shriveled heart. Enlarge your heart and you will enlarge your potential for pain.”1

May the power of the Gospel shine brighter in us this week, friends. Jesus has paved the way for relationships to flourish over any former dividing walls, over grievances or unmet expectations, and for enlarged hearts that have great capacity to love. So, I hope as a community we will arrive earlier each week, so that we can engage with one another to form the closest possible links, and so that we can settle our hearts to sing, praise and adore Jesus. Times in worship are times for us to know God more intimately, and knowing him more intimately will fuel our knowing one another deeply! God bless your week, friends.

1 R. Kent Hughes, Colossians and Philemon, pg. 153

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