Creating and managing relationships are two of the most important aspects of being a Christian. It comes with the added challenge of managing expectations and emotions of ourselves and others. It is most challenging when the people we deal with do not necessarily share our ethical and moral standards. What is a true friend? Do you have someone in your life to whom you can attach that definition? One friend we have that is most certainly true is Jesus!
A true and beloved lady of God once said: “Teach the gospel every day and when necessary, use words.” This affirmation is a beautiful way of saying that we should live the gospel every day, thereby teaching others by our behavior. Then when they ask of the hope that is within us, use God’s word.
Being a disciple of Christ means building quality relationships for Christ and living in a way that is uniquely different. It is unique in that we recognize there’s accountability beyond ourselves. This is necessary because if we’re accountable to Jesus, we know that everything we say or do is subject to His approval instead of justifying our ideas. It is special in that everyone we encounter should find us curiously interesting, implicitly trustworthy and desire to be around us. Well-grounded Christians who develop a strong relationship with Christ make the best friends, family and even counselors of life. You’ll always get the truth, spoken in love and with assured sincerity.
Learning about ourselves helps us in understanding others. Since we are a spiritual people serving a Spiritual God, we need to know what spiritual gifts He has given us. We have partnered with FindMySpiritualGift to start the process of self-identification at the spiritual level. The test is free and you might find it interesting what your natural gifts are and what you can do to be even better.
What the World Offers
The world offers everything temporal and nothing permanent:
Human Glory – A little fame maybe, temporary & fickle, plenty of frienemies
Riches – Definitely temporary because you can’t take it with you
Empty Religion – None or little basis in scripture / Feel-good Religion / Popularity
Nothing Spiritually Sound
Convenient Friends – so long as YOU are convenient to THEM
Frustration, Indifference & Overall Unhappiness
Mat. 16:26 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?
Jesus
As disciples of Christ at the Junction City Church of Christ, we are ever mindful of what the world offers to lost souls. We must remember daily what is out there and why we have an obligation to show people a better way. We teach how to resist covetous feelings towards things and when to not participate in unfruitful relationships. We are a spiritual people and our minds are ever on those most spiritual things. This is just one of the principles we teach at the Junction City Church of Christ.
Are You Searching? Feel like something is missing in your life? There’s a reason you’re here reading this and maybe we can help you find the answer.
Lk. 15:4 – 32 “Parable of the lost sheep, lost coin and the lost son” – Jesus in the parable of the lost sheep, lost coin and the lost son gives us a brilliant illustration of priorities, especially in the latter part of the parable regarding the lost son. Our attitude in approach to anything is key. Some do not know they are in a lost condition. Some know, but do not know the true way to God and need help. Some who know are rebellious or are indifferent. The only way to know anything is with credible, trustworthy information. Jesus gives us that in abundance and the Bible is priceless in terms of spiritual development. Willful ignorance can have an eternal cost.
This is why we are strictly a Jesus-loving, Bible-believing church and we do our best to show it every day!
Jesus gives us another illustration in a proper attitude towards the lost in that of the good Samaritan.
The Good Samaritan – Luke 10:30-37 – Grab your Bible and pull this up and look at how each of the below people handled the situation.
The Priest
The Levite
The Samaritan
Developing a relationship with Jesus requires understanding Him as a man and His relationship with contemporaries of His time as well as the Father and Holy Spirit. We strive to learn, teach and build each other up with this knowledge. We grow closer to Jesus when we practice the kind of love that He continues to show us today. This is done not only within our membership but in prayer as well.
Prayer
The way we communicate with God is through prayer. God communicates with us by answering prayers. It is not a free-for-all. If you’re not a Christian, you probably don’t really know what this means or how it actually works. Be assured that prayer works! Just because it is poorly understood doesn’t mean it doesn’t work. Jesus was constantly in prayer to the Father. The Apostle Paul was constantly in prayer as well.
The world treats prayer like an anecdote and doesn’t understand prayer at all. The world offers nothing worthwhile and long-lasting to anyone! We help you get past all the noise and into a right-relationship with God complete with a hotline to Him. You get a relationship that is truly loving and where God is active in the lives of His children.
