5 Ways Christian Relationships Look Different

Here are five ways dating as a Christian is (theoretically) different from modern dating:

1. You won’t rank number one.

Romantic comedies — really pop culture more broadly — would have you believe the person you date should worship you: you should be the air that person breathes, the reason for his or her existence. Sounds wildly romantic, right? Maybe. But, the Christian perspective is a bit different, at least when it comes to the bigger picture, which has implications for relationships and dating.

In an Atlantic article titled “Jesus Is Ruining My Love Life,” the author (not a Christian) writes about being in tears when her boyfriend admits rather unashamedly to loving Jesus more than he loves her. While that’s hard to hear — and difficult to live out — Christians believe it. God doesn’t exactly stutter when he tells people to put him above all else — it’s his first commandment, and Jesus echoes him inLuke 14:26 and Matthew 22:37.

Christians stray from modern dating conventions by not treating any human relationship as the be-all and end-all. That place is God’s. Really, it’s comforting to know that when your significant other fails you, or if the entire relationships fails, you don’t lose your source of worth.

2. You were made to be in relationship.

When society isn’t saying that your significant other should worship the ground you walk on, it’s telling you to focus on yourself, your success, your career — all of it starts to sound rather anti-relationship. As if you shouldn’t look for a relationship until you’ve achieved all you wanted to in life. As if choosing said relationship is, well, weak. But, in looking at the Christian story, you see that people were actually made for relationship.

Look at Adam — you know, from Genesis. The first words out of his mouth ever are, “At last!” It’s an exclamation Adam makes after God creates for him Eve. As if something inside of him had been longing for this person, this relationship — because he was made to be in one. I haven’t reconciled that with the apostle Paul’s bleak view of marriage, but God does say inGenesis 2:18, “It is not good that the man should be alone.”

It’s worth revisiting the idea that all people are made in the image of God. So, what does God look like? In Epic, John Eldredge writes, “How wonderful to discover that God has never been alone. He has always been Trinity — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God has always been a fellowship. This whole Story began with somethingrelational.”

3. Relationships are about more than feelings.

We’re constantly told to find someone who will make us happy. While that’s true to an extent — of course you shouldn’t be with someone who makes you miserable — human emotions (like happiness) are fickle. You’ll wake up one day and you won’t feel that overwhelming passion to be with the person you couldn’t take your eyes off of yesterday. Do you jump ship and look for Mr. or Mrs. Right elsewhere?

Seth Adam Smith, author of Marriage Isn’t For You, wrote on his blog: “. . . real love isn’t just a euphoric, spontaneous feeling — it’s a deliberate choice — a plan to love each other for better and worse, for richer and poorer, in sickness and in health.” Sure, relationships involve chemistry and attraction, but that doesn’t keep them. Even in dating, there is commitment. You make a choice to meet that person’s emotional needs when you least want to, when you don’t feel that spark.

Dating isn’t about compatibility or the superficial qualities you think are attractive. Christianity reorients your mindset so you seek to be the one, not just find the one. (I’m not suggesting that “the one” exists, but you get the point.)

4. You have to be willing to look the fool.

It’s totally against human nature to be comfortable putting yourself out there, even within the context of a relationship. Our culture values that blasé, play-it-cool attitude that tells you to wait eight hours to text back. But that thinking is so contrary to how Christians would interact were they modeling themselves after, well, Christ.

Jesus made the first move by coming to earth and displaying his sacrificial love for humanity. That should give you the security to risk looking foolish in your relationship — to forgive first when you don’t want to, to clarify intentions when it’s easy to be ambiguous, and to express emotions knowing that person might not feel similarly. In The Four Loves, Christian apologist C.S. Lewis writes, “To love is to be vulnerable.”

5. Dating isn’t meant to be done in a bubble.

One of the implications of being made for relationships is that much of Christian life is done in community, hence the Bible studies, and the small groups, and the prayer fellowships. In Relevant magazine, Emerson Eggerich, who runs the ministry Love and Respect, advises Christians to involve godly people in their dating lives, and idea that goes against societal norms — “there’s so much isolation today and so much autonomy that we’re losing a gift God has given us by receiving this kind of input.”

As with every other aspect of life, so with your dating life — it’s meant to be shared. If the church is a family (it’s not called a fellowship for nothing), in it are brothers and sisters — peers who will relate to your struggles and joys, but also older members who can impart wisdom — all eager to help you discern where your relationship is and where it should go.

Source : www.faithstreet.com

The Book of Acts: Serving

What the book of Acts tells us about serving:

**My hope for you after reading this article is the inspiration to start serving your community

The Acts of the Apostles depicts the early church working hard to grow itself and serve others in the face of opposition, shortages of people and money, government bureaucracy (church bureaucracy came later), internal strife, and even the forces of nature. Their work shows similarities to what Christians face in non-church-related workplaces today. A small group of people put all their heart into work that brings Christ’s love to people in every sphere of life, and they find the amazing power of the Holy Spirit at work in them as they do it. If this is not what we experience in our daily work, perhaps God wants to guide, gift, and empower our work as much as he did theirs.

Work takes center stage, as you might expect in a book about the “acts” of the leaders of the early church. The narrative is abuzz with people walking, speaking, healing, giving generously, making decisions, governing, serving food, managing money, fighting, manufacturing clothes, tents, and other goods, baptizing (or washing), debating, arguing, making judgments, reading and writing, singing, defending themselves in court, gathering wood, building fires, escaping hostile crowds, embracing and kissing, holding councils, apologizing, sailing, abandoning ship, swimming, rescuing people, and through it all, praising God. The men and women in the book of Acts are ready to do whatever it might take to accomplish their mission. No work is too menial for the highest among them, and no work too daunting for the lowliest.

Yet the depth of the Book of Acts stems not so much from what the people of the early church do, but why and how they engage in this amazing burst of activity. The why is service. Serving God, serving colleagues, serving society, serving strangers—service is the motivation behind the work Christians do throughout the book. This should come as no surprise because Acts is in fact the second volume of the story that began in the Gospel of Luke, and service is also the driving motivation of Jesus and his followers in Luke. (See Luke and Work atwww.theologyofwork.org for essential background information on Luke and his audience.)

If the why is service, then how is to constantly challenge the structures of Roman society, which was based not on service but exploitation. Luke continually contrasts the ways of God’s kingdom with the ways of the Roman Empire. He pays attention to Jesus’ and his followers’ many interactions with the officials of the empire. He is well aware of the systems of power—and the socioeconomic factors that support them—operative in the Roman Empire. From the emperor to nobles, to officials, to landowners, to freemen, to servants and to slaves, each layer of society existed by wielding power over the layer below. God’s way, as seen in the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts, is just the opposite. God’s society exists for service, and especially for service to those in weaker, poorer or more vulnerable positions.

Ultimately, then, Acts is not a model of the kinds of activities we should engage in as Christ’s followers, but as a model of the commitment to service that should form the foundation of our activities. Our activities are different from the apostles’, but our commitment to service is the same

Source : www.theologyofwork.org

Tips On How to Pray

How to Pray

1. Say hello! 
When a friend enters a room, the first thing most people do is say hello or throw up a wave or nod. In many ways, this is the beginning of prayer: an acknowledgement of God's presence. When we walk into a Church, we genuflect in front of the tabernacle to humble ourselves while we acknowledge and reverence the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist inside. As you begin to pray, whether it's just walking somewhere during the day, in a chapel or in your room, take a moment to acknowledge whose presence you are in. 'Be still, and know that I am God' (Psalms 46:11).

2. Be yourself. 
So many people think that holiness is unattainable, and that to pray we need to look like a statue of St. Francis with our hands folded piously. The reality is that we were created to be in communion with God, and He desires to be in a relationship with us. He doesn't want you to be a carbon copy of a past saint. He created you with your own gifts and passions, and wants to shine through you uniquely in them. Come to him as you are and let Him transform you into the saint He wants you to be!

3. "Teach us to pray' (Luke 11:1).Jesus' apostles asked Him these words, and that conversation resulted in what we call the 'Our Father' prayer. If his own apostles asked Jesus to teach them how to pray, how much more should we ask him to teach us to pray! Ask God to help you and know that He listens. 'Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you' (Matthew 7:7).

4. Hit the brakes! 
The world we live in today blasts us with media and noise from every direction all day, from texting to music to tv and internet. These aren't bad things, but too much can be distracting from our relationship and conversation with God. “Silence is so lacking in this world which is often too noisy, which is not favorable to recollection and listening to the voice of God” (Pope Benedict XVI). Take 10 minutes every day from the time you spend on facebook or tv, and use that time to pray. Put God back at the center of your heart and mind.

5. Keep it alive. 
A prayer life that isn't kept up is like a pond with no water flowing in or out. It becomes stagnant. There's no oxygen coming in, and it becomes uninhabitable. All you’ll find is scum and mosquitos. Nobody likes mosquitos; don't be that person. Yet a person who cultivates their relationship with God in prayer finds a much different picture. There is fresh water flowing in and out of the pond. It is life giving! There are flowers and trees that grow along the sides. Your prayer life will affect the other areas of your life.

'Happy those who do not follow the counsel of the wicked, Nor go the way of sinners, nor sit in company with scoffers. Rather, the law of the LORD is their joy; God’s law they study day and night. They are like a tree planted near streams of water, that yields its fruit in season; Its leaves never wither; whatever they do prospers' (Psalms 1:1-3).

6. Let it transform you. 
Practice makes perfect. The entire Christian life, including prayer, is something that we have to work on to become better at it. God can do amazing things in us through our reaching out to him in prayer!

'Virtues are formed by prayer. Prayer preserves temperance. Prayer suppresses anger. Prayer prevents emotions of pride and envy. Prayer draws into the soul the Holy Spirit, and raises man to Heaven' (St. Ephraem of Syria).

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