12-1-2017

 Good Morning All,

                1 Thessalonians 4:9; “Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another”

        One of the “standby” plots in Christmas movies is the unwelcome, unwanted rude Christmas guest.  Normally this is some distant relative of your spouse and you mistakenly invited them for Christmas but you were just being nice and didn’t expect them to say yes.  Soon all sorts of havoc reigns and the movie ends with someone’s house on fire.

     It is somewhat ironic that the one thing most people claim to seek for Christmas, family around them, can be a great source of angst and worry.  We wonder if we have anything in common; we wonder if our tastes are even close.  So we fret about getting along; maybe we fret all year long.  Yet God wants us to live as his dear children and to love one another; here are a couple of ideas.

    First and foremost, pray for one another.  Take the time to honestly and earnestly pray for those whom you love.  Ask God to bless them and to give them the peace the need to live healthy and contented lives.  Another thing to try is to focus on engaging in small acts of kindness for one another.  Open the door, offer to get a cup of coffee, give a complement.  These small and simple acts can show another that you value them, first as a human but also as someone of importance in your life.  It is when we begin to get stingy with these small acts that we can tend to drift apart.  

    Another tool to use is to always pay attention to your “inner voice.”  If your inner voice, your conscience, God’s Spirit active in your heart and mind, tells you that you would not like experiencing the event that is occurring; then chances are the other person won’t enjoy them either.  This is part of God’s Spirit getting you to remember the “do unto others as you would have them do to you” scenario.  If you would not enjoy being treated the way you treat others; they don’t either.

    Another way is to try and help your loved one feel secure.  If our actions make the other person feel less secure in the relationship, be it a marriage, family setting or church family; the other person will often withdraw as a defense mechanism to avoid being hurt.  One way to address this is to express how much you value the other person’s worth in your life.  Express to them how much they make your life better and that you would feel less fulfilled without them in your life.

   One last way is to open yourself up and be vulnerable.  Opening yourself up to express your true feelings and experience the love and joy, the pain and sorrow of a relationship can make it easier for others to do so as well.  Above all, know that God’s will for us is to live in healthy relationships ad he gives us his Spirit to make them work.

Father, give to me the wisdom to love my brothers and sisters as you love me.  Open my eyes and my heart to the need for love in this broken world.  Open my spirit to giving this love without question.  In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret