Relationships: A Mess Worth Making

by Timothy S. Lane

Mercy means you resist the temptation to favoritism

If we are only committed to be hospitable to people we find comfortable, our lives still lack mercy.

Mercy means you are committed to persevere in hardship

Mercy sees hardship and does not run away. It jumps in and gets involved. Mercy does its best work when suffering is ...

Mercy rejects a “personal happiness” agenda

Mercy is willing to involve itself in things that are not happy or comfortable. It finds more joy in doing God’s will than in a comfortable, predictable life. Mercy is willing to forsake comfort to bring God’s comfort to someone else.

Mercy means you live with a commitment to forgive

One reason we play favorites is that we don’t want to relate to people who will need our forgiveness.

Mercy means you overlook minor offenses

Mercy is so engaged by the beauty of the big things God is doing that it doesn’t have time to focus on things that are of no consequence.

Mercy does not compromise what is morally right and true

My willingness to persevere and forgive reflects my desire to give God room to do the good things only he can do in your life. Mercy understands that grace is a better pathway to change than condemnation, but it never compromises what is morally right and true.

A commitment to mercy will reveal the treasures of your heart

We struggle because there are things we desire more than ...

Mercy in our relationships has been compromised by the subtle pursuit of various god replacements.

Giving mercy always demands mercy

When you extend mercy, you will begin to see how selfish, impatient, unforgiving, and inconsistent you can be. Mercy will show you how much your own heart still needs the continuing work of the Redeemer. It will drive you to the end of yourself and to the grace of your merciful Savior. And that is a very good thing!

When God chose me to be his instrument of mercy, it was not just a call to duty; it was a gift of grace.

You can’t think about anything correctly unless you see it as a whole. And since God is the whole, we need to start with him. God’s glory is the most important thing to him.

Their giving encouraged unity

Their giving was a supernatural work of the Spirit

Their giving was surprising

Their giving was sacrificial

Their giving was spontaneous

Their giving was an act of submission

Their giving was a spiritual barometer

Like money, time is a window into your soul.

Time is a resource we all have in equal quantities.

It is not calling you to frenetic activity

It means that you see your life in light of your various callings

But if I am not careful, I will wish my life away and miss many opportunities to love and serve my children.

These are missed opportunities to die to self and grow in grace. God wants us to see the daily struggles of life as critical moments of redemptive opportunity, rather than hindrances.

It means that you are to seize the little ...

You must see the context in which these things take place

The “reality” you see will be the reality you live by.

Helps us understand what is going on

Points us to where we should be going

Tells us how to get there

they need something more

Imagination is not the ability to dream up things that aren’t real; it is the ability to see what is real but often unseen.

for a Christian whose hope is in an invisible God, seeing the unseen is essential.

Imagination gives us a deeper sense of two unseen realities: (1) our identity, the unseen realities of who God says we are; and (2) God’s resources, the unseen realities of his presence with us and provision for us.

The stakes are high: the reality our imagination embraces is the reality we will live by.

If God forgives, we must work to forgive. If he is working to make someone a better person, we should do what we can to encourage those changes. If God is working to make peace, we are to be peacemakers. If God daily bears our burdens, we want to help shoulder the burdens of others. If God is working to produce hearts of worship in us, we should seek to stimulate adoration in one another. In short, we are called to help each other see the unseen reality of our active, present, and personal God. God’s work is driven by an agenda so much grander than simply making our lives better. He wants to remake us into his likeness. And that likeness can be seen in Jesus.