Sabbath: Reformation: Healing Broken Relationships
Read for This Week’s Study: 2 Tim. 4:11, Philem. 1:1-25, 2 Cor. 10:12-15, Rom. 5:8-11,Matt. 18:15-17.
Memory Text: “For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life” (Romans 5:10, NKJV).
Even after Pentecost, the relationship between believers was at times strained. The New Testament records repeated examples of the way that church leaders and individual members dealt with such challenges. These principles are extremely valuable for the church today. They reveal the positive results that can come when we use biblical principles to deal with conflicts.
In this week’s lesson we will focus on restored relationships. Great spiritual revivals in the past fostered healed relationships. Movements of the Holy Spirit involve bringing people closer to God and to one another. They include breaking down the barriers in our relationship with God and breaking down barriers in our relationships with one another. In short, the greatest demonstration of the power of the gospel is not necessarily what the church says but how the church lives .
“‘By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another’” (John 13:35, NKJV). Without this love, all our talk about revival and reformation will come to naught.
Study this week’s lesson to prepare for Sabbath, September 21.
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My name is Nqobile Moyo frm Zimbabwe I have been touched by this lesson for us to revive. We need to demonstrate LOVE as individuals and as church ,so that we can draw others to Christ.
Let that mind which was in Christ be in us today! Phil 2:5 without love God's church will become a house of evil spirits!!
As a church we need to take advantage of this lesson so that we mend all the broken relationships based on biblical principles
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I'm touched by the quote " The Power Of Gospel Is Demonstrated By How The Church Lives not Sayings. If I look into how I live, do I reflect Gospel? God has somethin here
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No-one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. (1 John 4, 7-12)
Indeed only God can bring down the barriers in our relationships. If only we could learn to trust in Him, we can overcome. It begins with our individual relationship with the Father. Our relationship with Gord will determine how we relate with others. May the Good Lord help us and reform us so that whatever barriers we have with our fellow brothers & sisters should be brought down and in the end His name should be glorified.
My prayer is that We as Christians will stop the criticizing & backbiting of each other, but instead love each other so that the church can experience " the true revival" we are studying about. May we be bound with cords that cannot be broken.
I absolutely love this weeks study about Healing Relationships. It brings to mind the story about Lazurus being risen from the dead after 4 days. It was because of the love Jesus has for Lazurus and his sisters Mary and Martha that those relationships were restored. Clearly, Jesus has, not only the ability, but also, the desire to restore relationships that are seemingly broken forever. It is easier to understand then, the ability for Jesus to restore a broken relationship between me and those that are still alive with which the relationship is strained. If I reflect the love of Christ, how can I not desire the restoration of relationships that can result in glorifying God?
When we have the Spirit of forgiveness, you will see things differently. We will not see the individual that hurts or disappoint us...But we will Satan. Satan is our enemy,using human's as his agent. So instead of us planing evil or keeping malice,we will pray for God to deliever them. Satan wil use our love ones,our closest pals to hurts us and make sure we sin and once we sin he has a legal ground to our prayers. Pray this prayer: Lord Jesus if there is anyone that has harmed me, hurts me, wounded me, in any way, i free that person, blessed that person, and forgive him(her) in Jesus Name. Amen. This has really helped to forgive. God help us all for on our own we can do nothing but with God all things that are imposible are posible.
The qestions from Sundays lesson caused a lot of deep thought. I finally came to the conclusion that...I don't know. Any thoughts?
questions: How can we learn to forgive those who have hurt or disappointed us? At the same time, why does forgiveness not always include a complete restoration of a previous relationship? Why does it not always need to?
As humans, it's not easy to forgive those who have hurt us. Only through Christ can we be able to. It may take time and we may not forget but if we allow Christ to work in us we can forgive anything. We should remember to always look up to God whenever we get hurt. We may not understand it but I believe that there's a reason for everything that happens to us. More often than not the people who hurt us the most are those closest to us and as Christians we must learn to forgive. Forgiveness brings with it a certain kind of peace and thats the only way we can be free. And that's what the Gospel is all about. Just as Christ forgave us, as wretched as we are, we should learn to forgive others. In Him we can overcome.
Through sin, our relationship with God was distorted and affected.The Lord had to search for Adam in order to restore the previous relations.How many of us demonstrate this kind of matchless love?Christ then took humanity
so as to restore what sin had separated.Glory be to God for He sent His only son to restore and bridge the relations for eternity.
Your question is a valid one and I think it needs more than a trite answer. Forgiveness is only the beginning of rebuilding a relationship. It takes two people to rebuild a relationship. My own experience with forgiving others has taught me that forgiveness gives me the power to start rebuilding relationships, but it is up to the other person to accept the forgiveness and their responsibility to rebuild. Further, sometimes rebuilding the relationship means that the relationship is different after the events the caused the breakdown in the first place.
For example, if my accountant steals $50,000 from me, and I forgive him, a lot has to happen before I am willing to entrust that person with my money again. In fact I may never trust that person with looking after my money. Forgiveness, does not mean being stupid.
I have experienced the peace of mind brought by forgiving someone else. It takes away that bitterness and hatred that has the potential to skewer our minds. Providing forgiveness is as much for the forgiver as the forgiven.
Thanks for this, Maurice. I believe the recognition that forgiveness and fully restored relationship do not necessarily go together is vitally important.
One kind of injury is both difficult to forgive and usually does not come with restored relationship.
Sexual molestation and incest is so traumatic and wounds so deeply that victims have a really difficult time forgiving - especially if they believe that forgiveness means restored relationship. Often the other party will not even acknowledge the wrong done, and at other times they will acknowledge it only as a necessity. It is clear to the victim that it is not safe to have any sort of relationship with the abuser - or it should be clear. Yet it is still possible to forgive. In this instance forgiveness means several things:
1. It means, firstly, to recognize that a great wrong was done, and it is the abuser's fault - with the abuser generally being someone older or more powerful either physically, socially or spiritually (or perceived to be so). Forgiveness is not possible without first putting the blame where it belongs.
2. Secondly, forgiveness means to give up the "right" to harbor bitterness against the person. It means giving up any vengeful thoughts and leaving the person to God to deal with.
3. Loving the person may mean protecting the person from a temptation for which he has a weakness. (In the case of pedophiles, for instance, it means that the church should make sure the person is never in contact with children, is escorted to the rest rooms, that sort of thing. It protects both the children and the person with this particular weakness. A person who has molested children but is not willing to agree to such restrictions is not safe to allow in a church.)
Many victims hold on to anger against an abuser as a "protection" against further abuse. But this is not necessary. It is possible to forgive and maintain healthy boundaries, and in the case of sexual abuse, it may mean that it is necessary to avoid contact with the abuser. Forgiveness sets the victim free to go on with life and to stop re-living the abuse over and over again.
We recognize that love and discipline go hand in hand in raising children. Discipline is one aspect of love. In adult life, similar principles apply, and healthy boundaries provide space to exercise love.
I have underwent great trials concerning forgiveness... how could I forgive people who hurt me so much... but like everyone said...first, it should be Christ through the Holy Spirit working in us... not until then...we can fully forgive....and forget the wrong doings and just remember everything should be restored as they were before. Only the world keeps the scar of sin...But God's forgiveness...cleans all mars.
The major problem with us as SDA christians is simply this. We read good stuff (the Bible) we listen to good stuff (weekly sermons) but we do not practice the good stuff. May God help us all to keep a faithful and happy relationship with Jesus, so we can have the same experience with others. The time is really late.
I think that sometimes we like to put ourselves and church down. Of course there is room for improvement, but when I look at the church I seen many of my church friends as wonderful Christians, who share burdens, go out of their way to help those who have lost their way, and have a happy knack of making people feel welcome into the community of believers. True there are some who are irritating "gits", but we are "Team Adventist", a collaborative cooperative community of believers, not a church where people turn up on Saturday to listen to a sermon, then go home and be selfish for the rest of the week. Or are we?
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I love the comments and the lesson too.....I'm afraid that if Jesus would come tonight how many Adventists would make it".... We have a problem of playing church all we want is to gain glory for ourselves , we quote more from the bible and the spirit of prophecy but we don't act the way we suppose to . May we be revived and reformed at the end of this lesson
I think that salvation is much more than making it when Jesus comes. Salvation is about making it now. If we listen to the words of Jesus in his preaching and teaching while he was here on earth, a lot of it was about sharing and caring for others. I guess that there are some who play church, but the Christians that I know and respect are living Christianity. I cannot count the Christians I experience who are "making it now!"
Strained relationships even after Pentecost suggest the differences of opinions that each one of the believers came to the table with. The Holy Spirit was allowed to heal the rift relationships among brethren. There was a lot of confessing and forgiveness which opened the way for the gospel to penetrate the hearts of unbelievers. How can our message be powerful if we hold on to our guns of right and wrong? I think that the number one problem we have as individuals is accepting the facts that we are not always right. Healing and revival comes when things are made right with God and our neighbors.
Evans, I believe one difficulty is that we label personal preferences as moral choices. Some things are not a matter of "right" and "wrong." We just perceive them that way, because that's the way thy feel to us.
Another difficulty is that we do not have healthy boundaries: We fail to make a difference between our responsibility, our neighbor's responsibility, and the Holy Spirit's responsibility.
We are responsible for our own behavior, not our neighbor's. It is not our responsibility to set our neighbor "straight." But God did give us the responsibility to tell others of what God has done for us - to be His witnesses, even to share the truth of His teachings. It is the Holy Spirit's job to convince and convict. It is not our job to argue someone else into agreement, submission. 😉
And we need to learn to respect others as children of God - even those with whom we disagree. 🙂
Thanks Inge for you insight into forgiveness and healthy boundaries.
After serious sexual abuse as a 7 year old child, rejection by family and being disfellowshipped from the church I had no healthy boundaries around my experience. I am now in my sixties and finally the Holy Spirit has brought me to the point where I can forgive and set sensible boundaries for my life. I have been baptised recently and now I can live with Jesus in my heart. This weeks lesson may have been written just for me and others with similar experiences.
Hi Jane. Praise the Lord! With Him, all things are possible, even the sometimes seemingly impossible task of forgiveness. Thank you for your testimony. God bless you as you continue to share it with others.
If it is forgiveness... it is a great story to tell and how I have overcame and found the benefits. Forgiveness is so easier said than done, especially if it's you caught in the situation. To make it short, I have been betrayed by a very close friend, it broke me for quite sometime, even affected my faith; I sued someone in court with the firm expectation 99.9% of winning the case (the accused begged so hard).... I backed out of the case, after a lot of prayer; Another trusted friend ran with a debt until now he ignores paying.... what examples more could I cite... It was hard forgiving...BUT... with the Lord it will be easy... FIRST, remember that we are sinners as well just saved by the blood of Christ.
What were the benefits after I have forgiven:
- I'm happier and peaceful ( with the grudge staying in my system, my BP was always above normal).... an unforgiving spirit always lead to unwise decisions.
- I am leaving the testimony.. of the Christian forgiveness
- I believed that only God can take vengeance for me (He said "vengeance is mine")
Great Lesson. Today, many people have lived unsolved relationships for years, and the reason is: "There is too pride in their hearts and forgiveness became impossible to them" Only one act to change it. Forgiveness is the solution for unhealable relationships.
your messages are so powerful lets continue to share the word of God. the more we share the more we grow spiritually.