Resilient Relationships

RESILIENT Series, part II

“Resilient Relationships”

By Pastor Kent Munsey

August 15, 2021

You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor.

• James 3:18 (MSG)

It is not the nature of the adversity that is most important, but how we deal with the adversity. We are called out of darkness into this marvelous light. This marvelous light is the Gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ. When we are called out of darkness into this marvelous light, we are a part of a community called the Ecclesia, the Church of Jesus Christ. We are called to do the hard work of getting along with one another, treating each other with dignity and honor.

It is worth putting in the work because this community is eternal. It is an eternal family. All of us together are the temple of God and the spirit of God lives in us (1 Corinthians 3:16). 

We need to understand the importance of relationships in our life. In the very beginning, God created Adam, and then said, “It is not good for man to be alone.” It is not good for us to be alone. We must establish godly relationships within God’s community if we are going to be resilient. We must nurture our most important relationships: our relationships with God and our relationships with ourselves.

One of the most important relationships is the one we have with ourselves. The Bible says to love the Lord with all of our heart and soul and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. How we love ourselves is a picture of how we love God, and ultimately how we love one another. How we treat ourselves is typically a demonstration of how we treat other people. If we are hard on ourselves, we will be hard on other people. If we have a hard time receiving forgiveness and grace, we will have a hard time giving forgiveness and grace. 

We must ask ourselves, are we treating ourselves the way God would want us to treat us? There are all kinds of studies about resilience. What they will tell us is that resilient people understand the value of relationships. They invest and develop relationships in their life so that they can be resilient. While we nurture important relationships in our life with the Lord, ourselves, family, and friends, there is a very real enemy and adversary of our soul. In John 10:10, Jesus tells us that he came so that we could have life and have it more abundantly, but there is a thief who comes to steal, kill, and destroy. 

The enemy shows up in our lives and gets access most of the time through our relationships. The enemy’s access occurs based on how we relate to God, ourselves, and others. The Bible gives us a clear picture of how we are to build and grow and nurture the most important relationships in our life. Often, we don’t recognize that relationships are used by the enemy to separate us from God, his purposes and plans for us, the understanding of our unique skills and abilities, and others. 

What do we do when we are hurt, offended, or wounded by someone close to us? The average person leaves a church due to a conflict with three or fewer people. If we are going to develop relational resilience, it will require us to do the hard work of growing and developing resilient relationships. When somebody hurts us we need to take the following steps. 

1. Reveal the hurt. We are humans. We get hurt physically, emotionally, and spiritually. We get let down, and our expectations are not met. The enemy works through divisiveness. He wants to separate and divide us. When we are alone and left to our own emotions and feelings, we can easily get stuck in that place of pain. It is so important to be honest with ourselves and open up to someone that we trust. We have to reveal the hurt. 

2. We have to release the offense. When we harbor unforgiveness or we allow pain to grow on the inside, we become bitter and resentful. When we don’t release the offense, it is like drinking poison and expecting someone else to die. When we release the hurt or offense, we are releasing it to God, and he is the righteous judge. He will judge justly. Releasing the offense is not the same as approval for bad behavior; it is demonstrating our faith that God is the righteous judge. 

3. Retune our hearts to God.  We are living in a day and time where the world needs the church more than ever before. The world needs a community. God’s heart is that we are reconciled back to him. He has given us the ministry of reconciliation. We must do the hard work of bringing peace, love, and joy to this world through relationship. 

Reflection/Discussion Questions:

1. Do you have a positive relationship with yourself?

2. Do you have a positive relationship with God?

3. What hurt do you need to reveal?

4. How can you move in the direction of releasing that pain or offense to God?

5. How can you retune your heart to God?