ALL RELATIONSHIPS BEGIN with God. He wants us! But He also wants us to have relationships with other people.
Some folks isolate themselves and live like recluses. They think they can make it on their own—that they don’t need anyone else. But in Genesis 2:18 (NKJV) God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.” We need each other.
When one of our relationships is broken, we are limited and crippled, so to speak. But when we maintain healthy, godly connections, it enables us to be tremendously effective for the Kingdom of God.
We can do things on our own and have some success. But when we work together with other Christians, we can turn our communities upside down for God.
The Church in the Book of Acts had a reputation for turning the world upside down (Acts 17:6). Their strong relationships with each other enabled them to change the world around them.
Acts 2:46 (NIV) says of the Early Church, “Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts.”
The early believers went to church but also fellowshipped with one another in homes and other casual settings. We can see two categories of friendship: people entering into a new relationship with Christ (Acts 2:41, 47) and people developing friendships with each other (Acts 2:42, 46). God designed the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ to be relational.
First through the believers’ strong relationships with God, and second through their connections with each other, the Lord “added to their number daily those who were being saved”
(Acts 2:47 NIV). As we do what they did, we will see more people being born again.
As a pastor, I’m not interested in catching “fish” from someone else’s pond. In other words, I don’t want to steal people from other churches. I want our membership to increase because we are winning the lost to Jesus Christ.
"We can do things on our own and have some success. But when we work together with other Christians, we can turn our communities upside down for God."
STRENGTH IN NUMBERS
Here is an illustration to show how strength is found in numbers. I can take a single stick and easily snap it in two. But let’s say I take a group of sticks (each being about the same size) and bind them together in a bundle. If I try to pop the bundle over my knee, I won’t be able to break any of the sticks in it.
The devil often comes to us individually and tries to snap us in half. But he won’t be able to break us if we’re bound together with others. He may bend us a little, but he can’t crush us. There is strength in numbers.
When people see us bound together and busy helping one another, they will want to have that kind of relationship. They’ll be born again into God’s Kingdom, and our churches will be filled with new babes in Christ.
Some of these converts may not look or act the way we do. And that’s all right. Too many Christians try to clean up the outside before they clean up the inside. But if a person has Jesus working on the inside, it will eventually show up on the outside.
When we understand godly relationships, we can shake hands with people who may not look like we do. We need to be ready, willing, and able to help new Christians get established in God and build relationships with others in the Body of Christ.
A BIBLICAL PATTERN
God is relational. He wants to have a personal relationship with us. And He wants us to have fellowship with other people.
You’ve probably heard the saying, “No man is an island.” We need God, and we need others. The Bible is full of accounts of individuals who had a relationship with God and with other people: Adam and Eve, David and Jonathan, Naomi and Ruth, Paul and Barnabas, and so forth.
The healthier our relationship with God is, the healthier our connections with other people will be. Let’s first establish and build our relationship with God. Then He will help us develop meaningful connections with the people around us.
Author
Kenneth W. Hagin
We can do things on our own and have some success. But when we work together with other Christians, we can turn our communities upside down for God.
Relationships
To develop meaningful relationships, we must invest time and attention. Below is an acrostic of the word relationshipsthat outlines elements we need to build healthy friendships.
Reach out to others
Enjoy each other
Loyal to each other
Available to each other
Trust each other
Interested in each other
Open to each other
Need each other
Support each other
Help each other
Invest in each other
Pray for each other
Strengthen each other
Share this Post