I pray that your love will overflow more and more, and that you will keep on growing in knowledge and understanding. For I want you to understand what really matters, so that you may live pure and blameless lives until the day of Christ’s return. Philippians 1:9-10 NLT
One of the long standing, most reliable research projects is The Harvard Study of Adult Development based on eight decades of research starting in 1938. The one-sentence conclusion of all this study of thousands of people over many years is that “the most significant predictor of your health, happiness, and longevity … is the quality of your closest relationships.”
With an even bigger foundation and knowledge base than the Harvard research, God’s Word speaks on the matter. It tells us through story and teaching that our relationships determine our life trajectories and satisfaction, and those who pursue love and wisdom are the ones to choose as partners. It is our great privilege and blessing to be those people for others.
The “one command” from Jesus (John 13:34-35) to love one another as He has loved us is the foundational command for everything else. The quality of our relationships with God and others determines the quality of our lives. Wisdom arises and grows as we pursue those relationships and is a powerful pull to everything good and helpful in life. Jesus said that His followers living this practical, loving, and wise life would be the most compelling argument for a watching world to believe in him.
Theologian Elton Trueblood observed, “One of the truly shocking passages of the gospel is that in which Jesus indicates that there is absolutely no substitute for a tiny, loving, caring, reconciling society. If it fails, he suggests, all is failure; there is no other way. He told the little bedraggled fellowship that they were actually the salt of the earth and that if this salt should fail there would be no adequate preservative at all. He was staking all on one throw … One of the most powerful ways of turning people’s loyalty to Christ is by loving others with the great love of God … If there should emerge in our day such a fellowship, wholly without artificiality and free from the dead hand of the past, it would be an exciting event of momentous importance. A society of genuine, loving friends, set free from the self-seeking struggle for personal prestige and from all unreality, would be something unutterably priceless and powerful. A wise person would travel any distance to join it” (The Best of Elton Trueblood, James R. Newby, Abingdon Press, Nashville, 1979, p.26).
We have such privilege. We don’t have to “travel any distance” to find it. These quality relationships that change our lives and change the world are found where they always have been – in His church. Don’t miss your chance to love, be profoundly loved, and to grow wise.
- Have you committed to a small group? This is your next wise choice.