Abiding Together
We all want homes, marriages, families, and friendships that are fruitful. We want relationships that are marked by love, joy, and peace. But when we look at the reality of our lives, there is often a massive gap between what we want our relationships to look like and how they actually look. And when we see that gap, most of us default to the same strategy of trying to manufacture the fruit. But here’s the truth: You cannot bear healthy fruit in your relationships without a secure, living connection to Christ. You cannot be fruitful in your relationships until you learn to abide in Him. In this series, we’ll look together at how abiding in Christ will transform the relationships in your life.
Messages in this Series
I Need Something More
We all wonder, “Don’t I have to clean up my act first in order to be the new person?” But the problem is we can’t. Maybe we do okay for a couple of days, or maybe even a couple of weeks, but then in a moment of weakness or exhaustion we fall back and do something old again. It takes a kind of power that we don’t have to live the new life – the power that can only come from the Holy Spirit.
Abiding in the Holy Spirit
What would it look like if you prioritized your life to be with the Holy Spirit? To stay connected to His presence, to allow Him to teach you and to guide you, and to trust Him to help you in every circumstance of your life? How would that change things for you?
Abiding Through Conflict
The goal of an abiding relationship is not to avoid friction at all costs. You cannot live intimately with another human being without eventually stepping on their toes, hurting their feelings, or profoundly disappointing them. The goal instead is to learn how to handle the friction without severing the connection.
Abiding in Parenting
Three lessons we can learn from Jesus in John 5 on how to respond to pressure and how we can apply that to parenting.
Abiding in Everyday Relationships
When you abide in Christ, your everyday relationships shift from transactional to transformational. You stop asking, “What can I get from these people?” and you start asking, “Lord, how do You want Your life to overflow onto these people right now through me?” The fruit Jesus talks about isn’t just for you, it’s also meant to be tasted by the people around you.
Abiding in Marriage
A healthy marriage is not two broken people facing each other, desperately trying to complete each other. It is two people, completely secure and deeply loved by God, standing side by side, and letting His life mutually overflow between them.
Abiding Together
We all are abiding in something. So the question is, what are we abiding in? What are you looking to to produce the life you want? What has captured your attention, your habits, your priorities, your imagination? Because what you abide in matters and it will determine what kind of fruit is being produced in your life.