At
our Family Reunion this past August, around 450 of us rallied
around a theme of Building Godly Relationships.
If we consider these three words individually,
we’ll be reminded that this lifestyle will require: 1) effort,
2) keeping it on the Word and Christ-centered,
and 3) staying intimately connected with both God
& people.
The living of God’s Word is the building of
godly relationships. It is not merely about knowing what’s
right. It’s bringing truth to life. In almost everything
we do, we are either building our relationship with God
through Christ, or building relationships with people.
The work of Jesus Christ blazed the trail for
the most fundamental relationship that we will ever build:
the one between God and us. It is an interactive
and personal fellowship. It is conversational and intimate.
We have introduction and access to God (Ephesians 2:18)
and we have a full-sharing fellowship with Him (I John 1:3).
We praise, worship and pray to God. We pour out our hearts
and bear our souls. He responds with encouragement, comfort
and wisdom, all the while reminding us of His abundant love
toward us. We hear God’s voice: 1) in His written Word and
2) by revelation from His Spirit. These are all aspects
of the relationship that each of us builds with God over
our lifetime.
We’re related to God by seed. He is our relative.
We share a family relation. He’s our father, our
daddy, our papa. He and we share a perfect, eternal, spiritual
connection. God’s Word tells us that we are partakers of
His divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). In fact, the core purpose
of a believer's life is building a godly relationship
with our Father! We might even say that the central target
of God’s plan of redemption has been to build a godly
relationship with His family, with Christ as the head.
He wanted us; we needed Him.
When we are building godly relationshipswith people, we are investing efforts to
cultivate interaction and friendship, all rooted in God’s
Word. In that, we are constructing associations based on
truth. Building godly relationships inspires us
to naturally gravitate toward God’s people around us in
order to personally engage in the life of God that is bubbling
in each other. Godly relationships are colorful tapestries,
never woven alone. They are crafted by investing meaningful
time in open conversation and shared activities.
Regular prayer for each other is also an important
characteristic of building a godly relationship
between believers. Why not call a friend today and ask to
be a prayer partner for a period of time? It could even
be someone whom you don’t normally speak to every day.
The Scriptures have much to say to us about
the idea of fellowship. Fellowship leads to relationship;
relationship is the natural environment of a tight-knit
spiritual family. No fear. No condemnation. No hypocrisy.
No judgment. Tons of forgiveness. Wall to wall love.
Developing godly relationships involves
time spent talking about our genuine thoughts, nuances of
feelings and honest opinions. If the only thing that we
respect and appreciate in each other is how many verses
we can quote or how many people we’ve brought to meetings,
then our relationships will be shallow, works-focused and
will contribute to ungodly comparisons (2 Cor. 2:10). In
godly relationships, we don’t only talk about God,
but also about our thankfulness for the package of giftings
that He has uniquely fashioned inside each of us. Godly
relationships are about being connected, both spiritually
and personally. They are about discovering similarity and
nurturing familiarity between each other.
A child might say it this way: think good things;
talk a bunch; do stuff together. What growth there
is for us when we spend time with people who are not exactly
like us… people in whom God is at work, yet maybe not in
ways that we are so familiar with! What a joy it is to invest
time simply appreciating the Christ-in-others around us,
as we develop loving habit patterns of building godly
relationships!
