Truly Do You Choose To Respect Others?

Truly Do You Choose To Respect Others?

Good Morning Friends,

Today we explore the challenge of relationships and the opportunity to learn how to love. It is about sacrifices and beauty and purity and intimacy. It is about whether we are willing to submit to seeing through the eyes of another person. It is about whether we regard Christ with reverence in our family as a witness to a trust that extends this relationship in preparation for the challenges of life. Truly Do You Choose To Respect Others?

Scripture: Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, the body of which he is the Savior. Just as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to be, in everything, to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, so as to present the church to himself in splendor, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind—yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hates his own body, but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, because we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church. Each of you, however, should love his wife as himself, and a wife should respect her husband.

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother” —this is the first commandment with a promise: “so that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.” And, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ; not only while being watched, and in order to please them, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. Render service with enthusiasm, as to the Lord and not to men and women, knowing that whatever good we do, we will receive the same again from the Lord, whether we are slaves or free. And, masters, do the same to them. Stop threatening them, for you know that both of you have the same Master in heaven, and with him there is no partiality.

Ephesians 5:21-6:9 (NRSV)

Message: The first relationship we have in life is with our parents and it can be a very profound experience, sometimes good and sometimes bad for all concerned. Typically it is a relationship in which parents learn humility and the children learn respect for authority. But sometimes children do not learn respect and that is a problem. You see our children are a great gift but greater still is the love of God manifested in them and their parents. Learning respect is critical. There are several important issues that help build really great relationships in families in churches and communities. And these areas of development are designed to help us to grow and to be resilient in a world in which we must learn about submission and leadership and obedience. Active engagement, creative reflection, belonging and assertiveness all have a place. And at the heart of the matter is a right relationship with God. Friends, here is the deal. We all need to be fed and nourished…children and parents as well. Respect all the way around from the inside out gets the relationships on the right footing. It is the model for unity in the Body of Believers.

Pray we understand the true nature of leadership. Pray we choose to love with enthusiasm. Pray we be on point when needed. Pray we choose to submit to the ways of God. Pray we learn the connection between obedience and wisdom. Pray we bring honor to the name we have been given… Christian.
Pray
we be as one in Christ. Pray we become more Christ like…shinning His light into a world. Pray we find the joy in respecting God. Pray we appreciate, honor and obey God in ways that strengthen all our relationships.

Blessings,

John Lawson