Hope For Today "Relationship"

It’s not uncommon in our society these days to have our character shaped by isolation and getting our own way in whatever way we can. It's challenging to live in agreement with people who have ideas and ways of doing things that are different from our way.  For healthy relationships to be formed and maintained we need to develop the character quality of co-operation.

We're one week on from our celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, demonstrating His power over sin and death and verifying His claimes to be bringing in a new kingdom, the kingdom of God. How are we meant to live in that kingdom today?

On this Good Friday we are stopped dead in our tracks, so to speak, in amazement, Lord Jesus, at the depth of Your love for us.  While we didn't care, while we scorned You and Your involvement in the earth and our lives You acted on our behalf at huge personal cost.

That Jesus took our sins and sicknesses on Himself and hung on the cross until He died, even though He could have called thousands of angels to release Him and deal with His murderers, this is love, as the old song says, “Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.”

On Tuesday of the week Jesus was sacrificed for us, we know that He was at a dinner. Remember the story? While Jesus is having dinner a woman of “ill repute” comes with a very expensive bottle of perfume and pours the perfume on Jesus’ head to express her love and gratitude to Him and to honour Him. Jesus said she would always be remembered and here we are 2000 years later doing just that.

To grow and mature and do well in any area of life requires commitment. Maintaining our life with God also takes time and effort. The habits and disciplines we practice need to be consistently carried on if we are to grow and mature. 

God invites us today to come close to Him for all we need and then to come close to others to share with them how they can do the same.

God longs for us to be people who are alive and fresh and good. He calls us to be his people, distinctive by the fact that we have life in us rather than death, truth that we are basing our values and behaviours on rather than convenient changing social mores.

We humans are quite small and fragile in the big scheme of things. We’re easily brought to a place of desperation. Thankfully God is there when we finally realize our need and makes all we need available to us.

With all the challenges we face individually and collectively as communities and a society, we’re thinking today about what it means to be supportive  of one another. 

One of the most respectful and generous gifts we can give another person is to really listen to them and receive the stories they have to tell us.

We come to God and invite Him into all we are and do because our need for His peace and power is desperate in order for us to not only survive but to thrive in the good plans He’s prepared for us.