Tag Archives: Relationship

Mentoring

MUST-READ: The difference that Christianity makes in personal relationships

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One of the neat things about Christianity is the way that it transforms the way you relate to other people.

How do you relate to other people if you are an atheist? Well, on atheism, there isn’t any way you ought to be that is independent of your own personal preferences. And there isn’t anyway other people ought to be, either. Instead, atheists tend to reduce relationships down to the level of making themselves happy. On an atheistic view, the purpose of life is to pursue happiness, and relationships with other people are just another part of pursuing happiness. Atheists will look at people as a means to help them achieve happiness in this life.

But things are different on Christianity. When Christians start to act on their belief that the Christian worldview is true, they have a completely different view of how they should relate to other people. Rather than trying to dominate them or using them for pleasure, we instead look at other people as God’s creatures who are made for a relationship with God. And this applies regardless of whether the person is ugly or pretty, young or old, short or tall, rich or poor. Everybody has to know God, and it becomes the Christian’s job to help with that.

Consider this post by Laura at GOP Refugee/Pursuing Holiness, where she explains how she’s had to put her own desires second in order to take a long-term, God-centered view of her relationships.

Excerpt:

There’s no time like the holidays to bring out the Jerry Springer in people.  A time to gather, a time to remember… all those decades of past slights and offenses, real and imagined.  We’re currently undergoing such a drama in my family.  In years past, I would have enthusiastically engaged in it, fiercely defending my position and making a case to show why I’m right, dammit, and you need to [stop, start, resume] [behaving a certain way.] Over the years, my perspective has gradually changed as I slog through this pursuit of holiness.  I’m less concerned with my own honor and more with God’s.

Wow! Go read the whole thing. This is something that Christians often struggle with that non-Christians never imagine is even an issue. Every day Christians deny their own desire to be selfish in relationships so that they don’t negatively impact other people’s vertical relationship with God. It’s hard for anybody to just let these interpersonal squabbles go unanswered. But we Christians are duty-bound to consider what God wants in relationships. We don’t want to distract you non-Christians from the main issue of being reconciled with God through Christ!

Mentoring

How an interest in apologetics is a sign of a friendship with God

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Greg Koukl of Stand to Reason wants Christians to be “ambassadors for Christ”. What’s that?

Here is a dictionary definition of ambassador:

1. a diplomatic official of the highest rank, sent by one sovereign or state to another as its resident representative (ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary).

2. a diplomatic official of the highest rank sent by a government to represent it on a temporary mission, as for negotiating a treaty.

3. a diplomatic official serving as permanent head of a country’s mission to the United Nations or some other international organization.

4. an authorized messenger or representative. Abbreviation: Amb., amb.

Greg Koukl says that a good ambassador needs 3 things: knowledge, wisdom and character.

Greg writes:

I’ve heard it said that sometimes you will be the only living Bible that anyone can read. Well, that’s what it means to be an ambassador. You will speak for Christ. One way or another, for good or for ill, you will speak for Him if you are a follower of Jesus Christ. So we want to strengthen good representatives, and we know that takes emphasis in three areas.

One are to strengthen as an ambassador is knowledge. In other words, you’ve got to know a few things that your sovereign wants you to represent to the rest of the world. So you’ve got to have this knowledge base.

Secondly, you’ve got to communicate that knowledge in a way that is sensitive to the people that you’re sent to. You need to understand their way of thinking. You need to understand their language after a fashion. You must be diplomatic, tactical after a fashion. So there is a certain wisdom, the right use of knowledge, that’s necessary for you to be an effective ambassador.

A good ambassador, any ambassador, packages that knowledge and strategy in the manner of delivery in himself or herself. It’s all wrapped up in an individual, and if that individual is offensive, if that individual is a bad representative, it doesn’t matter that the knowledge and tactics are sound. If the individual is wrong then the message loses its force. This is why we emphasize not just knowledge, not just wisdom, but also character. You must package the entire message in you personally so that you can be an effective, accurate, and virtuous representative or ambassador for Jesus Christ.

I think that a good ambassador for Christ needs to be motivated, as well. A good ambassador is concerned when some people have false beliefs about God’s existence, character and purposes. An ambassador cannot stand by and do nothing while God’s reputation is diminished in public. It is this concern for God as a friend that drives people to study apologetics, as well as theology,science, history, etc. We want to know what God is like, what he’s done and how we can show these things to be true.

The mission of Christian ambassadors

Consider 2 Corinthians 5:11-21, especially verses 11 and 2:

11Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience.

12We are not trying to commend ourselves to you again, but are giving you an opportunity to take pride in us, so that you can answer those who take pride in what is seen rather than in what is in the heart.

13If we are out of our mind, it is for the sake of God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you.

14For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.

15And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

16So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.

17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

18All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:

19that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.

20We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.

21God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

This passage about reconciling God and man is one of my favorites in the Bible.

God has chosen us to communicate on his behalf to people who don’t know him. An ambassador doesn’t treat God as a means to achieving happiness, security, health and wealth in this life. Nor is the ambassador’s job to let other people be happy without a relationship with the real God who is really there. The ambassador has a responsibility to explain God’s existence, character and purposes to those who are still ignorant of him. And that takes effort. God is not interested in making his human “pets” happy. He’s given us a task to accomplish – a task that may well consume a good deal of time, effort and money. A task that may diminish our happiness by making us different and unpopular.

Apologetics demonstrates your friendship with God

I often think about how to test others to see whether they are genuine Christians or not. This can be done for friendship or even when testing a prospective mate. A subjective “Christian” who invents their own view of God subjectively, using intuition and emotions, is not going to put themselves second for God and serve him as an ambassador. Instead, they’ll think that a relationship with God really means projecting their own desire for happiness onto God. “God” is there to make them feel happy, not to make demands on them.

And if a person doesn’t want a relationship with God as a real person, they won’t relate to you as a real person, either. If a person doesn’t think that God has purposes and feelings distinct from their own, they won’t think you have purposes and feelings distinct from their own. If a person thinks that God’s purpose is to make them happier, then they’ll think that your purpose is to make them happier. If a person is not willing to sacrifice their interests for God’s interests, they aren’t going to sacrifice their interests for your interests, either.

am⋅bas⋅sa⋅dor

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Use ambassador in a Sentence

–noun

1. a diplomatic official of the highest rank, sent by one sovereign or state to another as its resident representative (ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary).
2. a diplomatic official of the highest rank sent by a government to represent it on a temporary mission, as for negotiating a treaty.
3. a diplomatic official serving as permanent head of a country’s mission to the United Nations or some other international organization.
4. an authorized messenger or representative. Abbreviation: Amb., amb.
News

Obama vows to repeal Defense of Marriage Act in speech to gay activists

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Story here at LifeSiteNews.

Excerpt:

In his speech to the homosexualist Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Saturday evening, President Obama again professed loyalty to the homosexual agenda and criticized people who hold to “old attitudes” about homosexuality. The President also vowed to repeal the “so-called Defense of Marriage Act” and praised the U.S. House’s approval of homosexual hate crimes legislation on Thursday.

[…]”Despite the real gains that we’ve made, there’s still laws to change and there’s still hearts to open,” Obama told the cheering crowd.

“There are still fellow citizens, perhaps neighbors, even loved ones — good and decent people — who hold fast to outworn arguments and old attitudes; who fail to see your families like their families; who would deny you the rights most Americans take for granted. And that’s painful and it’s heartbreaking.”

[…]On Saturday, President Obama called the movement’s quest to normalize homosexuality on various fronts a quest for “basic equality.”

“I’m here with a simple message: I’m here with you in that fight,” he said.

Obama also praised the passage of homosexual hate crimes legislation in a House defense policy bill on Thursday, and said he was preparing to sign the law after it passes Congress.

[…]Addressing the lobby’s concern over Obama’s perceived lack of zeal in dismantling federal marriage laws and other such issues, Obama said Saturday: “I also appreciate that many of you don’t believe progress has come fast enough. I want to be honest about that, because it’s important to be honest among friends.”

He assured the group that “my commitment to you is unwavering,” and pointed out that he has called on Congress to “repeal the so-called Defense of Marriage Act.”

[…]The President expressed broad support for HRC’s mission to drastically alter America’s cultural perception of marriage and the family.

“My expectation is that when you look back on these years, you will see … a time in which we as a nation finally recognize relationships between two men or two women as just as real and admirable as relationships between a man and a woman,” said Obama.

LifeSiteNews also reports on the new hate crime bill. (H/T Andrew)

Excerpt:

The United States Senate approved an amendment yesterday adding “hate crimes” legislation to the annual Defense Authorization bill, which would add “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to the list of federally-protected classes.

[…]Critics have warned that the bill has a chilling effect on religious free speech against homosexuality, pointing out that similar laws in other nations have facilitated the prosecution of Christians who speak against homosexuality, particularly in Canada and the United Kingdom. More importantly, they charge, “hate crimes” laws violate the guarantees of equal protection under the law by creating preferential classes for justice.

“‘Hate crimes’ laws contradict the 14th Amendment to the Constitution and create unequal justice by elevating some groups of victims at the expense of others,” said Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America. Wright pointed out that under the proposed law, “Victims who engage in homosexual, transgender, or other sexual behavior get special treatment over victims who are military officers, police officers or veterans,” such as the military recruiter who was slain in June by a Muslim convert at a shopping mall in Little Rock, Arkansas.

This is what the many Christians who voted for Obama have achieved. They voted to “tax the rich” and to “bring the troops home” based on ignorance of economics and foreign policy. But what they achieved was the silencing of Christian moral convictions on marriage and family in the public square. And the children who will now be raised without mothers or fathers will reap the whirlwind.

Here’s a refresher on why people oppose same-sex marriage.