Nurturing Healthy Interpersonal Relationships: A Christian Perspective

The kernel of this sermon includes the importance of one's relationship with God, the nature of true friendship and love, and the complexities of interpersonal relationships, particularly between men and women, all from a Christian perspective.

We all know too well that Interpersonal Relationship is the degree and level of how we get along with people. It is the level of understanding in connection with vulnerability, ideas, opinions, goals and objectives between oneself and other individuals. Generally speaking, we are constantly relating to people because we are social beings and don't live in isolation. Therefore, we have different kinds of relationships - family ties, clan extended relationships, friends, colleagues, associates, etc. Thus, armed with all the facts we need to know about the implications of our relationship with God and our fellow human beings, let us commit our past failings into the hands of our loving Father during this Lenten season and earnestly be resolved to make a U-turn in all our relationship to owe nobody anything but love as St. Paul tells us “If you have erred, forgive yourself, accept yourself and hold your head high to live for a better and brighter tomorrow.”

Our main focus in this discourse will be:

1. Our relationship with God and

2. Friendship between the complementary sex.

We cannot appreciate this topic without examining our vertical relationship with God which affects directly or indirectly our horizontal relationship with our fellow human beings. With this in focus, we are bound to have a balanced experience and attitude to Interpersonal Relationships in our lives.

Let us talk about the love of God or our relationship with God before we look at the relationship between man and woman (can you please turn to the person on your right and share how your relationship with God is now?).

Is intimacy with God possible here below? We all desire a personal friendship with God through His Son Jesus – a friendship that can satisfy our every craving for absolute love, our every longing for absolute truth, and our every desire for intimate conservation with God as a friend speaking to a friend. In talking about such a relationship, we should be careful not to base it on the level of human feelings because feelings and affection are subject to change; therefore, we cannot rely too much on our feelings in our relationship with Christ. This is so, because our love for Christ, which has no visible and sensible support is based on faith. It is through this faith that we can draw closer to God.

To build up an intimate and personal relationship with Christ then we must work through these steps: -

a. The certitude that we are loved by God - Accepting ourselves as we are – sinners – Romans 3: 23

b. Belief in the presence of Jesus.

c. Knowing Christ – Philippians 3: 10-12

d. Resembling Christ – I Peter 2: 21

Having summarised how our relationship with God should be, we can then proceed to about Interpersonal relationships between a man and a woman in your class. Young, mostly unmarried adults. These tips are also applicable to those who are married. It will help you renew your marital relationships.

Relationships are between individual persons, which is fostered by understanding, which is a result of communication – good communication. This is the main tool to understanding each other in a relationship just as the root is the plant, without which it cannot survive.

Generally speaking, we all are different individuals with different ways of doing things. What might seem reasonable to others might be unreasonable to another. Therefore, we have to give room for individual differences. Having this in mind, we might be able to accept each other's expectations.

Your Expectations

We should be realistic individuals basing our expectations on reality, such as, it is very difficult to find a young man having just one friend, especially a female. But his having more than one friend is right because our expectations are unrealistic and ill-informed.

Many young ladies dream of having tall, muscular, broad-chested, intelligent, God-fearing, nice, etc. friends with the hopes of marrying him. But this is an idealistic approach. For most girls, if they cannot get what they desire but take it and accept what is available, they always end up deciding to mold the guy to suit their expectations thinking that they can change him overnight which more often than not fails and they are shattered.

For young men generally, I think you believe you have to 'make it' or be rich before you can capture the attention of the females. You also will expect a lady who is real – no pretense. You also believe that no lady is capable of true love but only after material wealth; girls are abundant so you can toast and toss them as you wish after all they are there if only you have all that glitters.