Our Bible verse for today: “Make room for us in your hearts.” 2 Corinthians 7:2 (CSB)
Our thought for today: “Take good care of your most important relationships.”
This morning I’m preparing for our Thursday night couples Bible study. It’s actually a marriage enrichment study. Eight couples meet every Thursday night to watch the DVD series “Love and Respect” by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs, followed by a time of group discussion. The DVD is helpful and funny but the group discussion is the best part.
Although that study is specifically about helping husbands and wives to maintain a strong marriage relationship, the principles taught really pertain to all relationships. The primary lesson is that we have to nurture and care for the relationships that are most important to us because if we don’t, they won’t be healthy. And life is miserable when our most important relationships are not healthy. It’s tough to be light-hearted and happy, smiling and laughing, if your home is filled with tension and conflict, with bolts of lightening shooting back and forth across the living room.
Perhaps the most important key to keeping relationships healthy is committing time to them. In my sermon last Sunday I talked about this. 2 Corinthians 7:2 was part of the passage we looked at. In that verse Paul urged his readers to make room for him in their hearts. In other words, “Make room for me in your life. Give me some of your time and attention.” In my sermon I reminded my listeners of an important lesson Benjamin Franklin once taught about the value of time. In contemporary language it goes:
“Do you value your life? Then value your time, because time is the stuff life is made of.”
Your life is made up of the seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years that God has granted to you. And here’s the thing, once a moment in time is gone, it’s gone; you can never have it back. It’s a piece of your life that is gone and which you will never get back. So when you give a person some of your time you have given them a piece of your life. Therefore your time is valuable and when you give a person some of your time (some of your life) you have given them a precious gift.
I encourage you to care for your most important relationships by investing time and effort into keeping them healthy. Don’t be like the guy who had the following conversation with his wife:
Her: Why don’t you take me out to dinner?
Him: I don’t go out with married women.
Her: But I’m your wife.
Him: I don’t make exceptions.
Don’t be that guy! Take care of your relationships and keep them healthy by committing time to them.
Oak Hill Baptist Church