Rift In Friendships For New Christian?

Q. What does the bible say about there being a rift in some of our relationships after becoming a christian?

Let’s understand the nature of man first. When Adam and Eve rebelled against God the relationship between man and God was destroyed (Gen 3:3), along with the relationship between man and earth (Gen 2:17), man and animal and of course man and man (Gen 3:16, gen 4:8). The fall destroyed perfect relationships. This is our nature until we are born again and the old man has died and the new creation has come. We now are free from the shackles of sins lordship but we still exist in the fleshly bodies which feed our ability to sin.

When we become a Christian we now have the resources to reconcile the nature of relationships how God has created them to be. First we have the Spirt in us which is the power and the motivation to direct us and guide us to live in relationships as we should. Next we have the Word of God which directs us through the gamut of relationship issues such as dealing with conflicts (Matt 18), Marriage (Ephesians 5), Body of Christ (John 13:34-35 ), the world around us (Rom 12:18-21, Phil 2:3-4), us and the spirit (Gal 5:16-26), us and wisdom (Ephesians 5:15-21), children and parents (Ephesians 6:1-4), servants and masters(Ephesians 6:5-9), family (Col 3:18-21), us and Christ (John 15:4, 9-11).

So as we live in the word, we must conform unto it, that we may have a new mind and heart. In dwelling in his word we have relationship wisdom. When we do fall short we must repent and mend relationships as best as possible. Repentance is a necessity in the Christian walk, for we must be humble and allow truth to stand against us that we may bow before it against our pride and selfishness. We are called to live relationally. it is our nature as humans, for we were made in the image of a relational triune God who exist in relationship within himself.

So as we live here on earth until we are called home, we should be encouraged that we can now be the light of the true nature of relationships to the world around us, who continues to live in the broken nature relationships.

This entry was posted on April 22, 2010 at April 22, 2010 and is filed under Christian Living. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.