Discipleship is about two relationships – our relationship with God and our relationship with our neighbor. Hence Jesus’ command to love God with our whole being and our neighbor as ourselves. “Neighbor” is the broad term to describe people in my life.
All relationships require attention. In order to grow in my relationship with God, I need time with Him – time to pray, read His Word, time to listen. There are also times of confession and seeking forgiveness for the times I do or say things that are offensive to Him.
Relationships with “neighbors” also require attention. We are prone to discard relationships when tensions exist or wounds occur but it is God’s design for us to work to restore those relationships. He gave specific instructions about confessing our faults to one another and about seeking forgiveness from those we have wounded.
Disciples care enough about both relationships to work at them. Maintaining and restoring those human relationships is not all about personal effort. Our horizontal relationships work best when our virtical relationship is at its best. In other words, there is a God component even in the relationships we have with others. He delights in helping us mend relationships.
THE DIVINE CONNECTION:
Last Sunday a man came to me after the worship service to declare what a great day it was. I first assumed he was about to compliment the morning message. He proceeded to tell me that during the worship time he felt prompted to go to a lady and apologize for things he had said to her a couple of years ago. (Sunday was the first she had been in church for a couple of years). When he went to her, she handed him a note. It was a note of apology from her. She, too felt prompted during the time of worship to apologize to him.
He was ecstatic and told me of the great burden that had been lifted. He had been carrying resentment and hurt and guilt and now it was gone. A relationship had been restored.
There is more to the story – we always have a team of people praying during the worship service. This team felt prompted during the service to pray specifically that relationships would be healed. They knew nothing of the strain between the two people mentioned above. God was speaking to two people in the worship service as well as a team in the prayer room.
The message for the day had nothing to do with restoring relationships and the prayer guides provided to the prayer team didn’t mention anything about relationships.
It was a God thing!!
