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Category: Relationships

The Number One Thing You Need to Know

Posted on by Bob Christopher

“Why did Jesus come to earth?” There are several different biblical answers to this question. I like the answer John gave early in his gospel account: “No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known” (John 1:18).

Through his life, Jesus showed us the Father. To his disciples, he said, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). Before knowing Jesus, we could discern some of God’s attributes through creation such as his eternal power and divine nature. These are plain for everyone to see. We can also see God’s wrath against all godlessness, as Paul wrote in Romans chapter one. Beyond these traits, the nature of God is veiled, so much so that the philosophers in Athens inscribed these words on an altar: “To an unknown God” (Acts 17:2). Only in Jesus is God the Father made known to man.

Some would rather keep God unknown. They fear finding out what he thinks about them. They don’t want to know the truth. And so they come up with their own ideas as to what God is like. Talk about a distorted view.

Apart from Jesus, we make God out to look like a Picasso painting. It’s our inherent fear that paints such a distorted view. We think of him as a mean, judgmental and angry being who can never be pleased. Let me ask you. Before you heard the Gospel and responded in faith, what did you think about God? How did you describe him? What did he think about you? How would you answer now? Hopefully, you see a stark contrast between the two. The difference is that now you are seeing him through the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Let’s take a look to see how this relationship evolves. Genesis 1:1 is the best place to start; “In the beginning, God…”

He initiated the whole thing. He reached down to you through Jesus Christ. That’s grace. His grace worked in you a desire to know him. That’s faith.

At God’s initiative, a union was formed – you in Christ and Christ in you. His Spirit was joined to your human spirit and the two were fused together. That was the point when eternal life began for you, the point when you started learning truth about the God of the universe. In his love and grace, God started making himself known to you in a real and personal way.

Excerpted from Simple Gospel Simply Grace

7 Ways You Can Make Relationships the Best Part of Life

Posted on by Bob Christopher

Relationships…talk about the ultimate challenge in life.
Learning to get along with another human being is just plain hard. It is an experience filled with heartache and pain and personal turmoil.
Your beliefs get tested and all your inner struggles and insecurities get revealed.
Yet, you power through because you know relationships are the best part of life.
You want to care and to be cared for. You want to know and to be known. You want to love and to be loved.
This just doesn’t happen. Relationships are built. They start with a good foundation and then with the right building materials grow and deepen over time.
Jesus is the foundation. He has equipped you with everything you need to build enduring and fulfilling relationships.
As you trust Him, you will see these seven relationship builders forming and shaping every relationship you have.

  1. Patience
  2. Kindness
  3. Truth
  4. Protection
  5. Trust
  6. Hope
  7. Perseverance

Relationships are the best part of life when they are built on the love of God.

The New Desires of the Heart

Posted on by Bob Christopher

Most of us are familiar with Ephesians 2:8-10. This is the passage quoted most often to affirm that salvation is a free gift, not something that can be earned through human effort. Here is the passage:
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
Most of us stop with verse 9. When we do, we miss the full impact of God’s purpose in saving us by grace. According to verse 10, this gospel message extends well beyond that moment when we cross over from death to life. Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection ushers us into a new way of life altogether, one characterized by good works.
These good works have been prepared for us beforehand by God. And as a new creature in Christ, we are to walk in them. But how do we know what they are?
In one of their many conversations with the Lord, the disciples asked Jesus this: “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” (John 6:28)
Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent” (John 6:29).
Paul echoes this truth in Colossians 2:6: “Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him.” This new life that we have been raised to live is a life of faith. But this still begs the question concerning good works. Isn’t there something that God wants us to do other than merely trust Him?
In a word, no. We are His workmanship. What counts as far as God is concerned is faith in Jesus. As we trust Him and our hearts respond to the leading of His Spirit in us, we will see the good works He has prepared for us begin to flow through us. And they will be recognizable.
Here is how. First, God gives us new desires. Paul calls them the desires of the Spirit. According to the terms of the New Covenant, these desires equate to the laws God puts into our minds and writes on our hearts. They flow from God’s love and are different, night and day, from the desires of the flesh.
Forgiveness is one of those desires God’s Spirit works in us. It is not normal, humanly speaking, to want to forgive someone who has hurt us deeply. But as children of God, forgiveness of others is a work God has prepared for us to walk in. We know it because God places that desire to forgive in us.
Next, the results of walking in those desires, living them out, can be attributed only to God. We can never be sure how someone will respond. Our imaginations are quick to jump to the negative possibilities, but God always has a better outcome in mind.
Calling up all the courage that we can, we step out in faith and extend forgiveness. What we first experience happens inside. Extending forgiveness calms the soul, brings peace to the heart and turns an anxious moment into one that surpasses understanding.
And then we see God’s work within the relationship. Maybe not instantly, but over time, it becomes clearer to us just how He is working what was a painful situation together for good. Couples on the verge of divorce have testified to the power of forgiveness in restoring their marriage. Assemblies of believers that were divided have come back together as they have walked in the forgiveness of God.
What happens both within and without is far too extraordinary to attribute to human effort. We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works. Let’s walk in them.

Relationship Destroyer #2 – The Braggart

Posted on by Bob Christopher

The word boast in Greek, which is only used in 1 Corinthians 13:4, comes from a word that means braggart. Braggarts brag or boast. It’s what they do. But not God, not love.
You probably know people who love to brag and boast. They talk about their accomplishments, and all the stuff they have, and who they know, as if they are special or superior to everyone else. They think more highly of themselves than they ought, as Paul would say. They make you feel “little” in their presence. How could you call that love? It’s not.
The Bible calls it worldliness. John the Apostle wrote, “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For every¬thing in the world, the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does, comes not from the Father but from the world” (I John 2:15-16). Boasting does not come from God. Here is the reason.
Boasting is nothing more than a lie. Think about it. Those who boast and brag think they are superior to everyone else. Is that true? They may have more stuff and greater accomplishments, but does that make them better than anyone else. According to the Bible, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). We all stand as equals at the foot of the cross.
Those who boast put others down. They humiliate those who, in their opinion, do not measure up. This was happening in Corinth. The rich in Corinth looked at their wealth as a sign of God’s approval. They despised the poor and would not associate with them, even at the Lord’s Supper. Paul confronted this evil head on. “For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?” (1 Corinthians 4:7).
Those who boast are self-centered to the max. They seem to live to put others down. The dignity of others is of no concern to these braggarts. Paul warns that this self-centered bragging will be one of the causes of trouble during the last days. His words are alarming: “People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God–having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them” (2 Timothy 3:2-5).
Aren’t you glad that God is not like this, that He does not brag or boast? He could. He has much to boast about. He spoke, and the world came into existence. He conquered death. Who are we in comparison? Yet, He is mindful of us. I love what the writer of Hebrews had to say about Jesus: He is not ashamed to call us brothers. Jesus became one of us, was tempted like we are and tasted death so that we could become like Him. That’s love, a love that does not brag or boast, but reaches out.
Yes, we are humbled in His presence, but we are never humiliated. We may feel that He is miles away, yet in grace He draws us near. In love, He calls us, who were sinners by birth, His own. This is God, the One who “…chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things–and the things that are not–to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before Him. It is because of Him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God–that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: ‘Let him who boasts boast in the Lord'” (1 Corinthians 1:28-31).
Excerpted from Love Is — http://loveisbook.net/