Msg #1407 Relationships: Salvage Before Severing

What The Bible Says

Good Samaritan's Penny Pulpit by Pastor Ed Rice

”Thou hast well said, I have no husband: for thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly.” (John 4) The subject of severed relationships is painful. Jesus uses it on the woman at the well to cut through a veneer and expose a broken life. On this Sunday, after Valentine's Day, after focusing on maintaining good relationships, attention is turned to the critically impaired relationships. There is nothing as hurtful in life as a severed relationship. The marriage relationship, sealed in a sacred vow, the parent-child or grandchild relationship sealed in blood, so too siblings and even intimate friendships, each of these relationships hold a portion of our soul and spirit in a delicate but certain grip. Each of us have one of these relationships in serious fracture, that is the nature of life. Each of us have or have seen one of these relationships severed; and wished more steps were taken to salvage it. Valentines, perched in the dead of winter, points toward a coming spring which marks an emphases on love. Use it to put some focus on a fragile, fracturing relationship. It is worth setting aside grudges, pride, and hurt feelings to shower our relationships with selfless love. Anything we can do to keep a relationship from severing is worth a supreme effort. Relationships fail because of unforgiven wrongs, followed by pride, and culminating in a grudge. Jesus, the fixer of all relationships, was innocent, but God in the flesh was wronged, he was rejected, he was reviled, but yet he said, “Father forgive them.” A Christian can do what he did. “For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps.” (1Peter.2:21)

An Essay for week #7 02/16/2014

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