Building relationships is absolutely essential for a happy and fulfilling life. It is also essential if you ever hope to have a fulfilling marriage, good family relationships, and a lasting friendship – not to mention, winning someone to the Lord. Relationships are key to just about everything we are about and everything that we do.

You cannot live a fulfilling life without trusting relationships – relationships where you know you can be the real you and share anything and still find love and acceptance. Relationships with others who listen intently and understand; but more than that, care deeply and will walk with you through whatever – never judging but always accepting. Never threatening or demanding. You cannot live without people who truly know you and you know deep inside that they love you and are seriously and forever committed to you.

That is why you should always self-monitor, assess, and work to develop and refine the ways in which you engage with those around you. We are told that our ability to build bonds of truth and acceptance leading to mutually supportive relationships depends on a few primary people skills. I am amazed at how many people – especially Christians are having trouble with these skills. Why especially Christians? Because they are the ones with a personal love relationship with the Lord and so they should have these skills sharpened and working to maximum performance in their lives already.

These abilities include (test yourself to see if…):

1> Read other people’s emotions and mood and don’t focus solely on your’s
2> Listen attentively to what others say and how they say it without thinking about what you want to say in response or in reaction to what you are hearing. Just listen! Listen to understand and not just to respond.
3> Assess, comprehend, and react to nonverbal signals for others – they are always there if you care enough to look and notice
4> Navigate any social setting or gathering with a focus on everyone else and not needing to be (consciously or sub-consciously) the center of attention
5> Bond quickly with others by loving and accepting them as they are
6> Just be yourself – assuming “self” is examined on a regular basis and basically presentable
7> Practice tact and self-control and realize that the sun does not rise and set on your life and your issues.
8> Demonstrate that you really do care for others by being there for them without having to talk about you, your situation, a situation you went through similar to the one they are now working with, or trying to fix the issue when you were not asked to. Just listen and be there…

To build healthy relationships and master these people skills, you must place your own self-interests, concerns, and agendas on hold and dial in to those around you. It’s not about being the center of attention or the funniest person in the room; it’s about engaging with other people on their terms and making them comfortable enough to invite you into their lives.

Try it – you just might like it and even be amazed at the depth of healthy relationships you can achieve in a short period of time.

The late Helen Keller lost her sight and hearing both before the age of two due to illness, but she went on to become a world-renowned author, speaker, and social activist. This great woman said true happiness comes through “fidelity to a worthy purpose.”

What does that mean? Well, I believe it means being faithful to your gifts, growing them, sharing them, and taking joy in them. It means moving beyond the pursuit of self-satisfaction to the more mature search for meaning and fulfillment found only in Jesus and His call upon your life.

The problem I have discovered is that the majority of believers do not know what their gifts are – natural skills and talents they are aware of but the supernatural call of God on their lives and the corresponding gifts they seem to be unaware of. This means they do not truly know themselves nor their purpose upon the earth. As a result they will change absolutely nothing and the planet (and the people on it) will be none-the-better for them having been here. They are simply taking up space and using up precious resources. The Church has failed them.

It is time for the Church to teach disciples who they are in Christ-and how to develop their gifts and calling. Then they will come to know who they truly are and what they are uniquely called to do and how to do it. Then they will have a “worthy purpose” in life and for life and, as a result, true happiness – at least according to Helen Keller.

While waiting for your Church to lead in this area there is no need to sit and do nothing. Everything God calls you to be and then to do is based upon your relationship with Him. So, work on that while you wait for the Church to train, equip and mentor you. Then, walk in the light that you do have – do what the Bible states believers do – share Jesus and the Gospel of the Kingdom with people. And, then, if you are not being trained and equipped – find a church that will help you to discover your gifts and calling and then actually release you to minister in your calling. Find a church that believes in “equipping the saints for the work of the ministry” (Ephesians 4:12).

This means you need to find a church that believes in and works with a leadership team of five-fold ministers especially apostles and prophets (Ephesians 4:11) and that can speak prophetically into your life revealing God’s plan and purpose for you and then train and equip you to fulfill God’s plan and purpose. Churches like this are hard to find but they do exist and are well worth the effort to find them. Then you can truly be a world changer.

Around the world the Holy Spirit is moving and healing those who come to the Great Physician for healing. Often these are non-believers whom God touches and heals so that they realize that Jesus is Lord and He is alive and still ministering today through His Church – through true believers who obey His command to “lay hands on the sick and watch them recover “(Mark 16).

Jesus is healing not just physical diseases but also healing those who are in need of a healing touch in their minds, their emotions, their spiritual life, as well as relationally. He is healing and restoring people, getting their attention, and revealing Himself to them so that they will cross the line of faith into His Kingdom and follow Jesus as true disciples.

This means He is inviting His people to step out in faith – even faith the size of a mustard seed – and pray for people asking Him to touch them. As we step out in faith we will see God bring new life to people and change their lives in the process. All you need to do is believe that God can use you to show them His love and then by let Him touch people with His healing power flowing through you.

You are baptized in the Holy Spirit and so have rivers of living waters (His power) flowing from your spirit (John 7). Release the river to flow out from you and touch others. Let others drink of this life-giving water and be healed.

Go on, you can do it. Yes you can!

The Bible talks about sin and judgment because our major problem as human being is sin and sin separates us from God and from one another. We are basically wicked and our hearts are deceitful. There is, according to the Bible, literally no hope within us. But, the Bible also talks about sin and forgiveness found only through the shedding of blood. God sent His only Son to die for us on the Cross of Calvary – to shed His blood for the forgiveness of our sins. He did not have sin in His life – He was God in human flesh and there was no sin found in Him. But, He became sin for us that we might put on the righteousness of God as found only in Christ Jesus.

The Bible states that Jesus – a fair and just yet merciful Judge of the living and the dead will forgive us if we confess our sins to Him – He is our priest, our High Priest. And if we confess our sins with godly sorrow and sincere repentance He will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness – the actual cause of the sin in the first place.

1 John tells us that as we do this we can then share fellowship (close, intimate, personal relationship) with Jesus and God the Father and with one another. Catch that – we can fellowship with other members of the Body of Christ, the Church. Why? Because, like us, they too have been forgiven and cleansed. Stay with me, now…

In 1 Corinthians 11 Paul is talking about the Lord’s Supper – the meal in which we celebrate and commemorate the life and death of the Lord until His coming again. Here Paul states, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes. Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly. For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep (have died).”

Again, stay with me here. This is important. If you eat and drink in an unworthy manner – without having taken the time to examine your heart, mind and life and asked forgiveness for whatever the Holy Spirit reveals to you … then you are not forgiven and you drink and eat in an unworthy manner and are in a bit of trouble here. But, if you examine yourself you are fine and the Lord’s Supper is a serious blessing and a celebration.

Here it comes and worth waiting for as well… “For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly. For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep (have died) ” Here the word “body” is not referring to the element of bread on the Lord’s table but to the Church – the body of Christ – the fellowship we have with one another if and when we have confessed and been forgiven. We break fellowship with fellow believers when we don’t take seriously the Lord’s death on the Cross and the remembrance of that at the Lord’s Table – and this broken fellowship, like Adam and Eve’s broken fellowship with God – causes death. That’s how seriously the Lord takes the fellowship we have with one another through His shed blood and the forgiveness He offers.

Adds meaning and serious room for thought to our monthly celebration of the Lord’s Supper and to the fellowship we share with Him AND one another within the local church.