Relationship principle #1 = Jesus placed the highest value on relationships. Love God and love others. So should we.
Relationship principle #2 = Jesus repeatedly told us – act like your feelings are important. Guard your heart. Pay attention to it.
Relationship principle #3 = We are to love others just like Christ loves us. Serve others. Sacrifice for others.
RELATIONSHIP PRINCIPLE #4: Communicate from the HEART. Jesus also taught us that communication is always from the heart.
If you want to understand what it is to talk to each other and why things work sometimes and why they don’t, you have to understand what Jesus taught about communication being from the heart. Matthew 12:34 Jesus said, “For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” Idon’t like that. I just want to say “It was a slip of the tongue, I didn’t mean to say it.”
Have you ever had one of those moments when something comes out of your mouth and you didn’t mean to say it and you know the results that are going to happen from it and you wish somehow you could reach out there and bring it back in? You want to say it was just a slip of the tongue but for Jesus words were never a slip of the tongue; they were always an overflow of the heart.
He says in Mark 7:15 “Your souls aren’t harmed by what you eat but by what you think and say.” Do you see the vicious circle? Jesus said it’s out of the overflow of the heart that the mouth speaks but then He also says that your souls are harmed by what you say. Out of the overflow of the heart my mouth speaks but what my mouth speaks can hurt my heart. An incredibly vicious circle.
I was reading about a vicious circle this week of a man who was out running laps at a local high school and he saw some football players getting ready for then new year and they were running wind sprints. He said to himself, “Those guys are a lot younger than I am but I can probably run laps – jogging – as long as they’re running wind sprints.” He keeps running and running and they keep running and running. Round and round. Finally he quits. He’s walking off the field worn out and one of the high school kids comes up to him and says, “May, I’m sure glad you stopped. Our coach told us that as long as that old man kept running we had to keep running!” That’s a vicious circle.
That’s what happens in our hearts. You have angry words which result in a wounded soul and a bitter heart which result in angry words and an angry soul and a bitter heart…. And it just goes around and around. Have you ever experienced an escalation of communication? Where is just seems to get worse and worse and you seem powerless to stop it. You’ve experienced what Jesus is talking about.
The power of words in communication. “Shouting? Who’s shouting?” or “Who are you calling a jerk, you idiot?” Those kinds of escalations of communication. Can you see some places in your life where you’re caught up in this circle? Maybe at work.
Maybe at home. Maybe with friends. Maybe it’s a circle caused by a selfish heart or a prideful heart or a greedy heart. Maybe your heart is set on pleasure and that evil that’s within you comes out of you and then it goes back into you again.
Maybe it’s an unforgiving heart. When I look at a pattern like this, my question is, “How do I break the pattern?” The start is in the heart. If I can break the pattern there, then the words become different, the heart isn’t wounded like it was and I begin to grow. How do you change your heart? It’s not enough to just talk it out. Some problems you talk them out again and again but you just keep coming back to them. You can’t get past them. You may have talked for hours/months/years
about this problem. Talking is important. And sometimes it does take a long time to break through a problem. But there is something else that is important.
I have to refocus my heart. Something has to happen inside. And Jesus told us how. Matthew 6:21 Jesus said (again on the Sermon on the Mount) “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
Jesus is clear: If I want to change the direction of my heart I have to change the location of my treasure. If I want to change what’s going on in my heart, I have to change something about what’s important to me. I have to take what’s important to me and put it in God’s hands. You break the pattern by trusting God and obeying what He says. And God says people are important. Treasure them.
Make an intentional decision to redistribute some treasure in your life. Put it in His hands rather than your hands. And it not only brings joy to your life but it betters all the relationships in your life. Because it changes your heart.
I love you guys. Stay faithful. Stay the course. ENDURE!
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