Hey everyone, welcome to today's podcast today. I want to talk to you about something that's super important during the fall time, right? This is the time where October, the weather starts to drop a little bit and family starts to come over. We spend, we start to spend more time indoors and then Thanksgiving rolls around and Christmas and then New Year's.
And I want to talk to you today about restoring relationships because relationships are way more valued than any material position that we could have. Yet it costs more to maintain, but relationships are definitely worth the investment. In fact, the Bible says that God has given us the ministry of restoring people to a relationship with the Father. And this is referred to in the Bible as the ministry of reconciliation.
But that's not all the Bible asks us to do because in our new Testament, there's a ton of teaching on the subject of how to get along with one another. And that's exactly what I want to talk to you about today. So I want us to take a look at what the Bible says that we can do to begin to restore our broken relationships. I want to give you five steps to restoring broken relationships.
The first step is to spend time in prayer about the problem in the relationship before actually going to talk to the person about it. Let me read to you from Isaiah chapter six verse five through seven. It says, then I said, it's all over. I am doomed for I am a sinful man.
I have filthy lips and I live among a people with filthy lips. Yet I have seen the King, the Lord of Heaven's armies. This is the prophet Isaiah speaking about him and about Israel, the people he was called to minister to. Verse six says, then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal and he had taken from the altar with a pair of tongs.
He touched my lips with it and said, see this coal has touched your lips. Now your guilt is removed and your sins are forgiven. It's always good to go into prayer before confronting difficult situations because spending time with God changes your perspective. Prayer allows you to have what I call an Isaiah moment that we just read about.
Prayer will help you feel what Isaiah felt in chapter six. When he had a vision that he was standing in the presence of God, he felt the weight of his own sin in the presence of God. Spending time with God will put you in the right place mentally, emotionally and spiritually so you can better confront difficult situations. Isaiah had work to do among the people of Israel as a prophet, but spending time in the presence of God allowed him to understand that he was just as guilty as sin as they were.
That's what prayer does. It puts you in the right place. The second thing that you could do is take the initiative. Don't wait for them to come looking for you.
Let's read Matthew chapter five verse 23 and 24. It says, so if you're presenting a sacrifice at the altar in the temple and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you, now that you have a problem with someone else, but that someone else has something against you. Verse 24 says, leave your sacrifice there at the altar. Go and be reconciled to that person and then come and offer your sacrifice to God.
Listen, resolving conflict in a relationship has a lot to do with us having a clear conscience. If something is nagging you about how a relationship ended a fight you had with someone, then take the initiative to go and reconcile that relationship even if it wasn't 100% your fault. The third step that you could take is sympathize with other people's feelings. Proverbs 1911 says, sensible people control their temper.
They earn respect by overlooking wrongs. Try to see things from the other person's point of view. You don't have to feel the same way they do. You don't even have to agree with their opinion, but the bigger person respects other people's thoughts and feelings.
Number four is admit your part of the disagreement. Look at Matthew 7, verse 5 says, Jesus said, first get rid of the law from your own eye, then perhaps you will see well enough to deal with the spec and your friend's eye. A relationship takes two. Usually if something is broken a relationship, both of the people involved have something to do with it.
So instead of playing the blame gang, try to see what part of the problem you are responsible for. This type of attitude is always helpful when trying to restore relationships. And finally, the fifth thing is make sure that it's a heartfelt effort at reconciling a relationship that you're not just trying to put a band-aid on the problem to get through the holiday season. Philippians chapter 2 verse 1 and 2, Paul is speaking to the church about unity and harmony.
Look what he says, is there any encouragement from being long in the Christ, any comfort from his love, any fellowship together in the Spirit, are your hearts tender and compassionate, then make me truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, loving one another, and working together with one mind and purpose. We should try to restore relationships wholeheartedly just as the text says. This only happens when we make an effort to love each other and work together to resolve our differences. Hope you enjoyed these five steps.
Let me know how it goes for you. God bless you, and we'll see you soon. You've been listening to the Daily Five. Apply the word, and make today, count.