Those People Around Us

Relationships

Each relationship nurtures a strength or weakness within you.

Mike Murdock

Judg 2:20-23
So the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and He said, "Because this nation has transgressed My covenant which I commanded their fathers and has not listened to My voice, I also will no longer drive out before them any of the nations which Joshua left when he died, in order to test Israel by them, whether they will keep the way of the LORD to walk in it as their fathers did, or not." So the LORD allowed those nations to remain, not driving them out quickly; and He did not give them into the hand of Joshua. NASU

Yes, it’s the same scripture from yesterday. There was just so much more to be gleaned from its reading. We talked yesterday of the importance of walking and living our faith out before the world. One of the things that will help each one of us in this journey is to realize that the people we are around, and the situations that we find ourselves in, are places of testing.

Relationships are necessary for us to see who we are, as much as they are to see who others may be. We learn gently (in most cases) from those that love and care for us greatly, and we learn also from those that do not have our best welfare in mind. People that are around us daily are a part of the daily trials and tests that God allows. Isn’t that important to keep in mind when you have that person on the job, or even in church, that doesn’t bring out the best in you?

They are around you as part of God’s plan to test you. God allows those people around us to remove those things that are not “His Best” from you, so as to make us into a people reserved exclusively for Himself. You are to be tested as silver, and purified as gold and relationships can be fiery, in fact they are some of the toughest trials we face aren’t they. Peter relates this to us in 1 Peter 1:22 “Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart.”

Now, I wonder why that is so important? 1 Peter 1:7 says that the proving of your faith was more valuable and important than purified gold, which is perishable. It is important for us to be held up and shine before the world and seen as the Redeemed souls of our Lord Jesus Christ, and it is important that His strength be established and witnessed in us. All of those relationships that we walk in every day are opportunities God uses to transform us into the image of His wonderful Son, and remember He has adopted you. All that God is doing in us is transforming us a little more every day, so that we resemble His family, what a privilege, what a make over…God Bless.

Pastor William