Day 20 - Restoring Broken Fellowship
It’s the “half-way” point of the 40 Days Of Purpose! I hope you have been learning some life changing principles and actually experiencing some “ah-ha” moments as the light of God’s truth shines on your understanding…
Today’s reading is about restoring broken fellowship. The first sentence in this chapter reads: “Relationships are always worth restoring.” Wow… for those of us that have gone through some serious rifts with people, we may just want to put that person out of our mind, pushed away, subjugated to a dark corner that we don’t even want to think of… let alone restore.
This reading could potentially bring up more issues with us than we’d like to admit. We can read about how pride separates us and puts us in opposition to God, and say “yes, I have to deal with this pride I have..” But here is where the rubber meets the road doesn’t it. Can we honestly say that the person or persons that I have offended or have offended me, that we maybe don’t even see that much, needs to have fellowship restored with us?
Does God himself put a value on that relationship that we would rather want to discard, reject, and forget, because of past pain and hurt? II Corinthians 2:15 says “God has restored our relationship with Him through Christ and has given us this ministry of restoring relationships.” If God has restored us, do we hold back on being restored to others? Paul tells us that getting along with others is a mark of spiritual maturity.
If you want God’s blessing on your life and you want to be known as a child of God, you need to be known as a peacemaker. Not a peace “lover” because everyone loves peace and doesn’t enjoy conflict. Jesus said “Blessed are the peacemakers..” those who actively seek to resolve conflict. Nobody said that peacemaking was easy, on the contrary it’s hard work.
Peacemaking is not avoiding conflict, running from the problem, or pretending that it doesn’t exist. Being afraid to talk about it is actually cowardice. Jesus was never afraid of conflict. It’s all in how it gets handled. This is why we need the help of the Holy Spirit to teach us how to restore fellowship.
Our reading brings up seven steps to restoring a broken relationship.
- Talk to God before talking to the other person.
- Always take the initiative.
- Sympathize with their feelings.
- Confess your part of the conflict.
- Attack the problem not the person.
- Cooperate as much as possible
- Emphasize reconciliation, not resolution.
Each one of these seven steps can be expounded upon but suffice it to say that the spirit that we come to each other in is crucial. An attitude that sees that the relationship has value, is worth restoring, and our humble admission that we the need the Holy Spirit to guide us for the timing and the words to say.
We then focus on the part, we played (not being blaming, demeaning or sarcastic), and the problem our part played in the conflict. Cooperate and be courteous.
The goal is not to agree on everything, it’s to be reconciled. Reconciliation focuses on the relationship, while resolution focuses on the problem. As we reconcile the problem may lose it’s significance and even becomes irrelevant. We may not see eye to eye with each other, but we can be restored and agree to disagree on some of the details.
Who knows what power can be released from our lives the minute we decide to take action and get things right. Light cannot fellowship with darkness. Have you been putting off getting restored with someone? don’t put it off anymore… the effort is worth it, the feeling of freedom and power comes from it, and God is able to use us in others lives to help them be restored.. a great purpose indeed.