Our 4th Gift To Manage: Relationships -- Part 2

(I left off with Pt. 1 here)

I want to remind us today about some of the benefits God's given us in the gift of relationships and try to inspire us all to cherish and manage this gift more!

1. God gave us relationships for influence.

We’re like chameleons. We become like the people we hang around. God created us in a way that we influence others and they influence us. The people we hang out with the most have the most influence on us!

Proverbs 22:24 gives us an example of this. Listen to what it says, “24 Do not make friends with a hot-tempered man, do not associate with one easily angered, 25 or you may learn his ways and get yourself ensnared.”

If you hang around someone who gets angry easily you will too!

In the book “The Power Of Focus” one of the co-author’s, Jack Canfield, tells what his mentor taught him about this idea…

“One of the first things my mentor, W. Clement Stone, suggested I do was to make a list of my friends. Then he directed me to put the letter “N” next to each person who nourished me and encouraged me to be great – people who were positive, optimistic, solution-oriented and had a can-do attitude. Next, he asked me to pit the letter “T” beside every person who was toxic – people who were negative, whined, complained, put down other people and their dreams, and who were generally pessimistic in their outlook. Then he asked me to stop spending time with the people who had a “T” next to their names. This is one lesson you must learn – surround yourself with positive people. Mr. Stone taught me that you become like the people you hang out with. If you want to be successful, you must hang out with successful people.”

You want to do well in school? You want to be more productive at work? You want to be a better Christ-follower?

Find a friend like this!!

Think about this...

Each relationship you have has a give and receive factor. Some relationships are more one way or the other. You need both types of relationships!

If you only have relationships that you give to, you'll feel drained.
If you only have relationships that you receive from, but none that you can give to, you won't grow.

Why?

Because we grow when we give/teach someone else! If you don’t have any relationships where you can give/help/teach the other peoples, you won't feel fulfilled!

We need both of these types of friendships!

I want to encourage everybody here to: find a mentor and be a mentor.

It can be an official mentorship where you ask someone to be your mentor or you look for someone to mentor OR it could be an informal thing where you've prayed and asked God to help you pick friends that can help you grow and to show you friends who you can help grow!

This is really important spiritually, but it's also important to have people like this in any and every area of life you can!

Watch how you grow when you find someone to mentor you. Watch how you grow even more when you start mentoring someone else!

One of the commandments Jesus gave in Matthew 28 is “go into all the world and make disciples...”

Start to pray that God would give you someone to disciple and that he'd give you someone to disciple you! This is a prayer God WANTS to answer in your life!

2. God's given us relationships to protect us.

I've told you this before we ALL need someone to speak the truth to us (encouragement and warnings) and someone we can speak truth to (confess).

Here are two verses in Proverbs that show us the friend speaking truth to us part that we need...

Prov. 27:6
“Wounds from a friend are better than many kisses from an enemy.”

Prov. 27:9
“The heartfelt counsel of a friend is as sweet as perfume and incense. 10Never abandon a friend—either yours or your father's. Then in your time of need, you won't have to ask your relatives for assistance. It is better to go to a neighbor than to a relative who lives far away.”

See, the speaking truth to us part, can and should be encouragement sometimes and warnings at other times!

We need friends to speak the truth in both these ways! Encouragement keeps us going and warnings protect us!

Who’s your friend who does this for you? If you don’t have one, then pray and ask God to give you someone like this!

In the book of James, Jesus’ brother tells us about the part about needing someone to speak the truth to us. He says this in James 5:16… “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.”

We NEED people we can confess to so that we can heal and move on in life!

Daniel Goleman in his book “Social Intelligence” says it like this…

“Simply reviewing something painful from the past with someone who helps us see a different perspective… can gradually loosen some of the distress by recoding disturbing memories. This may be one reason for the relief that can come when client and therapist rehash troubles: the talk itself may alter the way the brain registers what’s wrong!”

These are all things I've talked to you about before, but it's good for you and me to be reminded about these things!

I want to take the rest of the time today and talk about the most important and influential relationships God has given us...

Our relationships with our families! These relationships can be some of the best and/or the worst relationships we have!

3. Our families (Parents, Sibling, Spouse, Kids) are the foundation God’s given us in life.

God gave us families for love, support, strength, encouragement, help, etc.

He cares how we treat them!

The Bible is filled with advice to obey your parents, love and respect your spouse, love your children, how to raise your kids,..

Have you ever thought of the POWER there is in a family?

· There’s no other group that knows you as intimately – the real you.

· There’s no one you can call “yours” like you can your family.

· There’s no one else you can love like your own father, mother, brother, sister or your own child.

· There’s no other person who can teach you like a parent can.

· There’s no one else you’ll probably influence as much (for bad or good) than your own kid.

· There’s no other person who can love you/hurt you like a family member can.

If you had a bad family, here’s the good news: God gives you 2 ways to make your own family!

1. God gives us the ability with a spouse you create a new family unit.
You are your family's chance to change the direction for your descendants – to redeem them!

If you had a bad family, upbringing, think about this...

What if you were given to your family as a GIFT to change the future of your family line? What if you were given to given your family line another chance at following God?

2. The other way to make a family of your own is through your friendships. Proverbs 18:24 “A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.”

Either way you look at, your our family (your birth family, new created family, or "family" friends) is your foundation. They’re your cheering section.

They are your future - literally. Jack, Will and Addison will be alive way after I’m gone! They are who/what I leave behind to influence this world.

We need to invest time in these relationships! We need to reinforce our foundations!

Zig Ziglar said this about relationships with our families…

"The evidence is convincing that the better our relationships are at home, the more effective we are in our careers. If we're having difficulty with a loved one, that difficulty will be translated into reduced performance on the job. In studying the millionaires in America (U.S. News and World Report), a picture of the "typical" millionaire is an individual who has worked eight to ten hours a day for thirty years and is still married to his or her high school or college sweetheart. A New York executive search firm, in a study of 1365 corporate vice presidents, discovered that 87% were still married to their one and only spouse and that 92% were raised in two-parent families. The evidence is overwhelming that the family is the strength and foundation of society. Strengthen your family ties and you'll enhance your opportunity to succeed."

Friendships and families really are God’s gifts to us!

We need to invest more time with them. We need to invest more time in talking with them, listening to them, laughing with them, encouraging them, forgiving them and praying for them.

“Success guru” Brian Tracy says this in his book “Focal Point” says it like this “Happiness in life, in large measure, comes from good relationships with other people – in your family and your personal life as well as at your work.”

Later he says… “You owe it to yourself to become a relationship expert.”

We need to invest time in our relationships.

We need to give and serve our friends and family. They’re our greatest assets. They gift us emotional strength and encouragement.

You don’t want to run the race of life and win and realize you have no one to celebrate with!

Next, we’ll look at the last gift that God has given us to manage as we finish this series.