Has someone in your life disappointed you greatly? Life is full of those kinds of disappointments. Guess what—you’ve disappointed some people, too, no doubt. Well, what can we learn from Jesus in dealing with people who fail us?

Did you ever think about how his closest friends and associates failed Jesus? Judas betrayed him; Peter denied him; they all fled at the first sign of trouble. These twelve men were disappointing failures as disciples, were they not? They were slow to learn, they had their priorities all confused, they had ulterior motives for following Jesus. Over and over Jesus indicated his frustration with their lack of faith and trust in him.

Yet he never threw them off the team. He allowed them to fail; he permitted them to make mistakes; he suffered through their ignorance and arrogance, until finally they became the men he intended them to be.

This is a people skill we all need to learn from Jesus and learn well. People need time to learn and grow. Failure is one of the best teaching methods ever invented. Time is also a good teacher. So, in dealing with people, remember that disappointments come with the territory.

Been disappointed in your child lately? Remember what you were like at his or her age. That always does it for me, because I can clearly remember the dumb things I did in early years, and my daughter is way ahead of where I was. Give your child time to grow. Teach and coach and role model for your children, but remember, they’re going to disappoint you as they grow and learn.

Got an employee who disappoints you sometimes? Maybe he or she hasn’t yet polished their verbal skills and they say the wrong words at times. Be patient with them. You probably have had your share of shoe polish on your face from inserting your foot in your mouth. If that person is teachable, he or she could become one of your most valued employees.

Another great people skill principle from our Master: Allow people to fail and disappoint and make mistakes, because in the process they learn and grow.

Getting along with people is one of the most important skills we all need to develop—and one of the most difficult. You know, regardless of what kind of work you do every day, you undoubtedly have to get along with some people in order to do it, right? You have to motivate them or placate them or correct them or teach them or guide them or help them—or all of the above. People! They’re always there!

Well, it’s no surprise that we can learn how to deal with all kinds of people in all kinds of situations by studying the Master, Jesus Christ. His people skills were the best ever. So, I want to point out some lessons we can learn from Jesus in how to get along with people.

Consider what Jesus taught us to do when a relationship has been broken or wounded. In Matthew 5: 23-24 we read:

If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.

Here’s what we learn from Jesus: If there’s anything wrong with a relationship, try to fix it quickly. Don’t let it fester. In fact, Jesus said to interrupt your worship if you have to. If you’re in church and you’re convicted about a hurting relationship, leave church even before the sermon’s over and go try to fix that broken relationship. Don’t let anything get in your way and don’t waste any time.

Also, Jesus teaches that we should make the first move even if we’re not the one at fault. He said if your brother has something against you, you go to your brother. Now, we’d probably say, “If he’s got something against me, that’s his problem, not mine.” But the Master said you should make that first effort to be reconciled and do so quickly.

Even though it seems backward to us, remember that doing it Jesus’ way works.

Broken relationships come in all sizes and descriptions. For example, a woman told me about a broken relationship with her brother. Because she doesn’t speak to him any longer, she wasn’t going to take part in her family’s Christmas celebration, as usual, because her brother would be there. That not only affected her enjoyment of an important family get together, but her young sons would also miss out on that family occasion.

A friend of mine is in the midst of a broken marriage relationship, a marriage of over thirty years. It’s not her fault that the relationship is broken, and she is doing all she can to repair it. But her pain has been palpable as she deals with the brokenness of this long-term most intimate of all relationships, her marriage.

Another friend was “downsized” from an organization and she felt the decision was extremely unfair. It came from people she had trusted as friends. But now that work relationship is severed and it has caused on-going hard feelings between her and the management she once respected. Though some time has passed since this relationship was severed, the memories are still painful.

I think of two friends, who are still friends, but something happened a few years ago, where one felt she had been betrayed by the other. Though it was basically one of those terrible misunderstandings of life, the friendship has never really been the same since then.

Think of the broken relationships in your own world, whether they are yours personally or those you are aware of. Consider the ripple effect that broken and hurting relationships have, not only on the people directly involved, but inevitably on many others as well.

Are we doomed to have to live with these broken relationships? What is our duty and responsibility in trying to mend a broken relationship?

Jesus’ “Fix” for Broken Relationships

Consider what Jesus taught us to do when a relationship has been broken or wounded.

Matthew 5:23 - 24:

Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.

Notice that Jesus is talking to religious people and that would seem to indicate that even committed people who are trying to do the right thing will have relationship struggles. I think Jesus is also telling us that mending broken relationships takes priority over religious activities and duties. He is teaching us that mending broken relationships has a very high priority.

Since Jesus says that if you “remember that your brother has something against you,” it must mean that it is possible to forget that you have a broken relationship. You may ask, how could you forget a broken relationship? Well, since they are so painful, we can find ways to put them out of our minds instead of dealing with them. Here are some of the methods people may use to “forget” about those unpleasant, hurting relationships:

You stay very busy, even if you have to create unnecessary activity. I’ve noticed that when I want to put off an unpleasant task, I use busyness as an excuse, and can I ever generate busyness when I want to. My guess is you’ve done the same thing.

You convince yourself that there’s nothing that can be done about it. You try to rationalize away the need to be reconciled by convincing yourself it would be an exercise in futility.

You decide that since you didn’t cause the problem, you shouldn’t be the one to initiate the reconciliation. This is one of our favorite cop-outs when it comes to reconciliation. Shouldn’t the person who caused the problem initiate any reconciliation? Seems right to us, so we forget about that broken relationship.

What we need more than anything in any relationship is love.

The Bible tells us that God IS love. John 3:16 says it perfectly. “For this is how God loved the world: He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.”

Sadly, there are times when it seems that having good relationships is more difficult than we would dare to admit. Why is that? Remember how TV shows used to say, “we interrupt our program to bring you this important message…” Well, here’s my important message: Read your Bible. Seriously, what I have been discovering ever since I made the Bible a daily discipline is how wrong I was about so many things and clueless about how to get it right.

Why are relationships, yes, even among the Body of Christ at times so challenging??!! Could it be that we fail to see how the Bible gives us clear and practical instructions for life—for relationships?

Consider this passage from Colossians 3:12-15:

Since God chose you to be the holy people he LOVES, you must clothe yourselves with tender hearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. Above all, clothe yourselves with LOVE, which binds us all together in perfect harmony. And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful.

These are not suggestions from the Apostle Paul!! These are divine orders that if obeyed will make us the kind of people the Lord wants us to be. Are we clothed in love, forgiving one another, being at peace with each other because Christ rules in our hearts?

Bacharach and David, a team of secular writers wrote a song some of you will remember called, “What the World Needs Now is Love.” It feels like these writers unwittingly uttered a prophetic word. What relationships need now is love, sweet love, God’s kind of love. It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.

If you would like to read the entire week’s message, click here to view/download the PDF.

Good relationships are built by trust. When you don’t trust someone it’s nearly impossible to maintain any kind of relationship with them. You may work with someone or even live with someone that you don’t really trust. You may have some interaction, yes, but you would never say you have a good relationship. And why? Because you do not trust them.

But instead of talking today about the people in our live who we don’t trust, let’s ask ourselves this question: Am I trustworthy? Am I the one that others might say this about, “Don’t ask her to do it. Believe me, it will not get done because they can’t be trusted.” And to be fair there are some people that truly cannot be trusted. But again, my question for you today is, can YOU be trusted?

The Lord is completely trustworthy. Our goal is to be like Him. He has never lied and never will. Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life” (John 14:6). He not only speaks truth, He IS truth. Jesus said this about the devil in the second half of John 8:44b: “He was a murderer from the beginning. He has always hated the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, it is consistent with his character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” Lying is evil and when we lie we are acting like the devil. Please don’t ever make light of lying.

So, what destroys trust? Lies. Many times lying is something we do because we do not have the courage to tell the truth. We are afraid that if we admit that what we did or didn’t do, was wrong, then people won’t trust us. Nothing could be further from the truth! What you did wrong might disappoint someone, yes, but lying over and over again destroy trust others have in you

The Apostle Paul says this to the church at Ephesus, yes to believers in chapter 4 verse 25: “So stop telling lies. Let us tell our neighbors the truth, for we are all parts of the same body.” This is what we need to do. Stop lying. Admit the truth. Then and only then will you be able to build good relationships with others. The Lord will help you. Slowly and steadily you will become someone who can be trusted.

Good relationships are built on trust and with God’s help we can become trustworthy.

Communication is how we maintain a relationship—right? God started this. The Gospel of John begins with these words, “In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God.” In Spanish, the literal translation says, “in the beginning was the verb.” Yes, verb, meaning action word. God created everything and "spoke” it into being. And God is still speaking to us through His Word, communicating what is essential for us to have good relationships.

I love to talk. I mean I LOVE to talk. But that, at times, has hindered my relationships. Why? Because talking and not allowing others to talk is not a good way of communicating. Yes, some people do NOT like to talk a LOT. But even those who are less talkative need to express themselves and need to be heard.

The Bible says in James 1:19, “Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must ALL be quick to listen, slow to speak...” Many of you have heard that women talk more than men. Whether that is true or not I don’t know, but I do know that I talk more than my husband, Rod. And if we’re going to have good relationships, we must learn to do what James told us to do. Number 1: Be quick to listen. Number 2: Be slow to speak.

I’ve led a class for New Believers for many years now in my church. There was one young woman that would barely say “hello.” To say she was shy was an understatement. And to be honest her timidity was a bit irritating to me. She, however, never missed a class and slowly she started to send me texts with her questions. Good questions. Then the Lord showed me how disappointed He was with my attitude toward her. Her words were few but her hunger for the Lord was deep. I did not know how to listen to someone who doesn’t talk that much. Yet she wanted to communicate and learn more and more about Jesus. I’m so glad she sent me those texts that showed me her heart. In time she and her husband began to help in the children’s ministry. What a blessing this couple has been to our church body!

Proverbs 1:23 says, “Come and listen to my counsel. I’ll share my heart with you and make you wise.” The first time I read that carefully I couldn’t believe that God wanted to pour out His heart to me! Even the Lord says, listen and I’ll speak. He wants you and me to LISTEN!

As we learn to listen, first to the voice of the Lord, then to others, the Lord will give us the ability to communicate the way we should and our relationships will grow better and stronger.

I want to tell you what nearly destroyed my wonderful relationship with my husband, Rod…Jealousy! Yes, that ugly and demonic thing.

I married in New York City (that’s where I was born and raised) but I moved to North Carolina because Rod worked for a Christian Television Network there. I was away from my family, away from my home church, with no friends, and my husband was working at a place that seemed to have beautiful women everywhere! Beautiful hostesses and singers, beautiful producers, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful girls seemed to inundate my insecure and weak mind. Every pretty face threatened me and so I vigorously tried to justify the way I felt. I said bad things about one particular girl, just to make her look bad. Jealousy turned me into such a monster that without any reason I would lash out at Rod and accuse him of wrongdoing!

Jealousy was destroying our marriage. It got so bad that I scared myself! So, I went to see a biblical counselor. Here’s what she finally said to me: “Dámaris, I rebuke you. It is obvious you are not a woman of the Word. God put you and Rod together for his glorious purpose and the enemy is trying to destroy your marriage. You need to repent and start reading your Bible.” My eyes opened real wide but I left there willing to do what she asked me to do.

Is jealousy ruining a relationship you have? Jealousy comes in many different forms. It could be a coworker that’s better at what she does than you are. It could be someone’s child gets better grades than your child. Remember that Satan is the first one who became jealous, and he lost everything because of it.

Listen to what James, the brother of Jesus Christ, says in chapter 3 verse 15: “For jealousy and selfishness are not God’s kind of wisdom. Such things are earthly, unspiritual, and demonic.”

That is so true. The first step to rid yourself of this horrendous state is to admit you are jealous. John 8:32 says, “And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Only Jesus can free you from that ugly jealousy. And that will only happen when you know and admit that you are indeed jealous!

What I truly needed was to see that my jealousy was unfounded and wrong. I needed to repent. Listen, my dear friend, there will always be someone prettier, smarter, more creative, more talented, more understanding, more whatever, than you! But God made YOU for His glory and you need to see that jealousy is a way of being obsessed with yourself and that’s idolatry. Want to have a better relationship with those you are jealous of? Repent and ask God to make you grateful for the very thing that makes them so special in your eyes.

I’m Mary Lowman of The Christian Working Woman and this week I’m delighted to have my long-time dear friend, Dámaris Carbaugh speak to us about relationships.

Thanks, Mary. I’m delighted to be here. It’s interesting that if you look at someone’s info on Facebook it sometimes says “in a relationship,” and we all know what that means. Isn’t it interesting that none of us think that that person is married. Well, I’m very much in a relationship, and have been for 41 plus years with my wonderful husband, Rod. It’s telling, don’t you think, that our society doesn’t include married people as people who are "in a relationship.” As I’ve been thinking about relationships, it’s becoming increasingly clear to me that we need to learn what God intended for relationships to be like.

First, God created us to have a relationship with him. The Bible tells us in Genesis 1:26, “Let US make human beings in our image, to be like US.” Right from the beginning we see that the Godhead has always been in a relationship. Yes, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit have always been in perfect communion! There’s no beginning and there will be no end to their relationship. I don’t think I’ll ever entirely understand why God would want to have a relationship with us—with me—it’s just a mystery to me. But I am so very thankful that he does indeed desire for me to know him and I can have a close relationship with God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The Father sent Jesus. Jesus came to show us the Father. And the Father and Jesus promised to send us the Holy Spirit to show us how to live in right relationship with him and with others. Of course when we sinned our right relationship with God was broken. But praise God—the Bible also tells us that Christ died for us while we were still sinners and made us right in God’s sight.

You know, until we understand how to have a right relationship with God, we will never truly know how to have a right relationship with others. Our relationship with God will determine the way we interact with everyone. Our husband, our children, our co-workers, our brothers and sisters in Christ. Everyone we interact with will either reveal the good relationship we have with God or not. Relationships are a gift from God. Do you see it that way? I sure want to. If we yield to God, He will use our relationships as a means to show us His heart. Our beloved David says this in Psalm 16:11, “You will show me the way of life, granting me the joy of your presence and the pleasures of living with you forever.” David wants that because that’s what God wanted. Keep in mind that the Father loved us so much that He sent Jesus, the way, the truth, the life, so that we could be with Him in a perfect relationship forever!

Thinking about relationships and how they started with God—God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit—and they have been in perfect relationship for ever and ever and ever without end. I’m just thrilled that he made us to have relationship with him and to have relationship with others. Relationships can be glorious and relationships can be extremely difficult. But God wants us to really understand the beauty of relationships because that is what we will have with him for ever and ever.

I must interrupt this message to remind you to READ YOUR BIBLE!  I have promised God that wherever I go and wherever I speak I will give this message! I was so ignorant for so many years about so much because I was not in the Word of God. You can be in church, like I was, and doing good things like listening to good preaching, attending Sunday School, singing in the choir, and so on, but still be very very ignorant of God’s Word.

I want you to have that in mind—that more than anything we are to love God’s Word. When I read it I’m not necessarily looking for some deep insight, but the more I read it the more I also understand what God is trying to say to me.  Jesus said in John 5:39-40: “You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” My prayer is that as I read the Bible that I would do exactly what Jesus said. That what I just read brings me to Jesus.  It’s not just words on pages.

I was thinking about that and how this one horrible thing almost destroyed the relationship I have with my husband when we first got married. I got this attack of jealousy. I was incredibly jealous, and God helped me. I went to a biblical counselor. She started off with three lovely words— “I rebuke you!” She gave me some instructions and Rod and I started to do what we needed to do and God delivered me.

In reading my Bible I also see that there is a good jealousy—a perfect jealousy, a holy jealousy. He is a jealous God. He will not share his glory with anyone and he is jealous for his people. He refers to Israel sometimes as his wife and she is an adulteress who has left him and he is jealous.

And in Romans 11:11 Paul says that God will now save the Gentiles to make Israel jealous. So God uses jealousy, in a sense, to get us right with him. I thought about that and wow. We have that twisted jealousy that Satan has, because he looked at God and said, “I want to be where you are.” And that has kicked him out and has twisted us in many ways. But I hope to tell you something—that I’m still a little jealous. I want to say that I believe that it’s a good jealousy.

There’s one person in the Bible and I wonder—Lord, what was it with this man that you loved? There is one person in the Bible that God refers to as his friend. I want God to say “Dámaris is my friend!”

That person is Abraham. And the Bible clearly says this. What did Abraham do? We know that he believed. This man was in a pagan country where they worshipped many gods. God speaks to him clearly. He tells Abraham that he wants him to get up and leave his land and family. And go where I will show you to go. And the Bible says that he believed.

The Bible also tells us in Hebrews 11:6—without faith it’s impossible to please God. That’s what I just loved about Abraham. That when God speaks Abraham understands it’s God and he says “Yes!” And he gets up.

The Bible calls Abraham the father of all who believe. He is the father of all who believe. I pray “God make me more like Abraham. As I read your word, as I see things that are maybe a little difficult, that I would just believe.” That if this is what God wants me to do—then do it. Don’t question me. Be like Abraham. I’m jealous! I want to be like this man because God loved him.

One translation of Romans 12:2 says: “Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God re-mould your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity” (Phillips translation “The New Testament in Modern English”).

I particularly like the first part that says “Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould,” because I believe we as believers are in a daily battle against conformity. Conformity to this world and its practices, its philosophies, its culture.

I’ve been talking about the absence of good manners in our world today, and this is one good example of how we can allow the world to squeeze us into its mold. I truly believe that every Christian should have good manners, not to please people, but to please the Lord.

What are good manners? Well, the list is quite long, but let me mention a few basic ones:

Being careful to say please and thank you appropriately

Allowing other people to go first

Not interrupting others when they are talking

Having good table manners, such as not eating until everyone is served

Returning phone calls promptly

Being on time

Keeping promises

Special respect for elderly people

Demonstrating kindness on the road

These are just a few that come to my mind. When we fail to have simple good manners in our society, we pollute our environment. Relationships are damaged because we are not considerate of others. We raise the general stress levels of our society; it’s simply more stressful to do anything or go anywhere because you are likely to encounter rude people. Careers are harmed by lack of professional manners.

But for us as believers, most importantly, opportunities to be a witness for Jesus are lost if we don’t demonstrate good manners. The uniqueness of our faith is that we have been made new creations in Christ through his grace and mercy, and we now have the power of God’s Spirit within us to enable us to care about others with sincerity. That means that in everyday life we should want to be polite because it gives us a chance to show the love of Christ to others.

If your manners are not in good condition, it could be because you weren’t taught them as a child or you’ve been shoved into the mold of the world around you. Either way, it’s not too late. Make it a matter of prayer and begin to consciously practice good manners. And remember, start with good manners at home, and then see how God can use it to bring glory to his name.

If you would like to read the entire week’s message, click here to view/download the PDF.