Relationship advice is everywhere. It seems like people have opinions on what you should be doing in your friendships, your marriage, your parenting, and every other relationship in your life. Maybe you’d trust some of them more if their relationships looked healthy, but there does not seem to be a correlation between competence and the sharing of opinions.  Paul talks about his relationships with the people in the church at Corinth.  This is not an exhaustive discussion of Christian relationships, but it does include some pretty significant guideposts.  These same ideas have life for our relationships today!

You’ve probably heard someone say that God will not give you more than you can handle. It is a well-intended statement, but ultimately it is misleading. God does indeed put us in situations that overwhelm us and cause us to despair. Paul tells the Corinthians that he and his friends experienced exactly this in Asia. And then he goes on to tell them how knowing Jesus transformed that experience from loss into gain. It is a pattern that the Corinthian church was invited to follow and that we are too! When we learn how to rely on the Lord, we find a deliverance and hope that we can hold on to.

We all like to be comfortable and try to avoid uncomfortable situations. This can be as normal and small as being socially uncomfortable for a few moments or as large as a major trial or loss that unsettles your whole life. Our minds fixate on what we think will be easy and enjoyable because we think there is too much to lose in discomfort. However, Paul opens the book of 2 Corinthians by talking about how comfort and suffering are connected for believers. Maybe you’ve never thought of it this way, so let’s take a look at Paul’s promise of God’s comfort that actually is brought through suffering.

The idea of surrender as a Christian can be offensive to people who don’t understand it. It sounds like giving up.  It sounds weak and desperate. It can cause those who are willing to be brave and bold to think that there is no place for them in following Jesus. But Jesus’ surrender showed us that yielding does not need to have anything to do with powerlessness. It can come from tremendous power and strength. The call to give our lives up is not one that requires us to believe that we have no ability to do anything else.  In fact, it actually asks us to choose it in spite of the fact that there are many other things we can do. Jesus’ example (and Peter’s) on the night of the betrayal brings our ‘One Night” series to a close with a look at these ideas.

Life is challenging. In fact, it is so full of challenges that many people are convinced they can never find peace or joy or even hope. Yet God's people are invited to walk by faith in the power of God. One story that illustrates this perfectly is the story of Jericho. The army of Israel is essentially asked to just go through some seemingly powerless motions. The point of God's instruction to His people here is to teach them about battles and victory. If you or someone you know is facing a giant wall that never seems to fall, this story is for you!

We live in the United States of America.  But we probably don’t think about the irony of that name for the current state of the country we call home. There have always been disagreements and debates, but it seems that there are few times in our nation’s history when we have been more divided than we are now. We used to see tragedy join us together, but now even that seems to be another reason to argue and fight. Jesus doesn’t want division to be a marker of His people.  As Christians, we belong to another kingdom, and Jesus’ prayer for us as well as all believers is that the Father would make us one. Living in a culture that normalizes division, it can be hard to even know where to start. Let’s take a look again at Jesus’ words about unity in Him and see if the Spirit will help us understand how to be one in Christ.

As believers, we recognize that our kids have to grow up in a world that seems so much more lost than anything we experienced. This can cause us to want to double down on protecting them and even isolating them from the world around them. While there is an appropriate level of insulation for our kids, we also have to recognize that part of our job is teaching them how to interact with their world.  For the gospel to be advanced in their generation, they will have to both know Jesus and their culture. A word in Scripture that Jesus uses in this discussion is ‘sanctification.’ This concept has direct application to believers who are trying to figure out how to interact with this world and how to navigate it with our children. Let’s see what Jesus has to say in His prayer for His disciples on this topic.

On the best teams, the players are more interested in the team’s success than in their personal accomplishments. Sayings like “there is no ‘I’ in ‘team’” find traction over and over again because a team that is working selflessly together is a team that maximizes their abilities and strengths. Too often, Christians in churches miss this reality. They become more invested in what people think of them individually rather than what they think of our cause or (more importantly) our Savior. Jesus prays about His followers on this last night before He dies. And one of the most amazing points that He makes is that, somehow, broken and messy people are a part of how God brings glory to His Son. Isn’t that an incredible privilege? Maybe it’s so extraordinary that it’s kind of hard to believe. But what if we stepped into the opportunity for our lives to bring glory to Jesus? Could that change the world?

How many people can you think of who suffered mistreatment in their time, but later that same event was part of why their lives had a great impact? People like Martin Luther King Jr and Nelson Mandela who suffered imprisonment were later hailed as leaders beyond compare.  Their convictions and jail experiences were transformed from shame into honor. Many believers throughout history have had a similar experience. We see some of these stories in the book of Acts. What was painful and humiliating turned into something that was a source of glory. For Jesus, He opens His prayer to His Father talking about the hour that has come. And He connects this moment to the glory that comes through it.  In doing so, Jesus teaches those who follow Him that our suffering and shame are not what they seem. When we are rejected and mocked for believing in and following Jesus, it only serves to bring glory to our Savior. May we be people who believe the truth deeply enough to face shame with faith.

There are many callings that God places on His children. We are called to share Jesus with others. We are called to love one another. Our job is a calling. Parenting is a calling. Marriage and singleness are callings. These may endure or may just be for a season, but while we’re in them, it is clear that God is asking us to serve His kingdom by being faithful in the place He has put us. Motherhood definitely falls under the category of a calling. It is one of the greatest privileges and one of the heaviest burdens that a woman can bear. So what does God’s Word teach us about facing our callings faithfully?  We’re going to go to a calling in the Old Testament Book of Isaiah. He was a prophet that God used and continues to use in significant and powerful ways. Maybe we think his calling was simple and straightforward, but if we look at the story of it, we may find that our callings feel the same as his.