And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.--Hebrews 10:24
To My Beloved Daughters
When we live our lives for Christ this happens naturally...no striving needed. Our submission to His Spirit grows His glory in our relationships with others. All our earthly relationships have His magnificent and glorious purpose. We are all fallen sinners in need of His grace. His goal is to conform us into the image of His Son and He promises that He will be faithful to complete the good work that He starts in us. See the people God has placed in your life on the basis of the person and work of Jesus Christ. The way we behave in our relationships with others says much about what we believe about God. Our words and actions will follow what our heart believes. Warren Wiersbe puts this in very practical terms. If a person is a Christian, we can accept Him because Christ lives in Him. If a person is a non-believer, we can accept Him because Christ died for Him. Beloved, let Christ be the link between you and your relationships with others. He gives each of us as believers the privilege to share in His redemptive work. Love those God has placed in your lives with His love, pray for them fervently, and speak the truth to them in love so that they may grow up in all things into Him who is the head--Christ. Allow even the circumstances that God permits in your life that crush you and wear you down to shine His light...look to Him in all of it and be radiant.
Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.--Colossians 3:12-17
