Discipleship Can Get Messy

I must say, as I look at Jesus’ building relationships, that it is time consuming, requires an intentional willingness to see where people can be and not just where they are now and at times can just be messy. Jesus looked into the eyes of rough fishermen and saw that they could become apostles. We must be willing to do the same thing. We must look around us and see those people who can shine like stars if someone is willing to invest in them. If we are going to connect with one another, we must be willing to make room for one another, our idiosyncrasies, our personalities, and sometimes even our faults. We ought to bear with one another. We ought to build relationships with one another. None of us are perfect. We all have issues, and we all have difficulties in our lives. We all need friends. We all need someone to look after us. We all need someone to look after. There is fulfillment in relationship. The scripture tells us that we’re to have hearts of compassion, that we’re to have hearts of love, that we’re to have kindness and humility and gentleness towards one another. We are to even feel this way toward those who have complaints against us. In other words, find the people you can connect with and connect with them. We’ve all had problems; we’ve all failed in many ways. The point is we should connect with one another and we should bear one another’s burdens because Jesus has chosen to do that with us. When we read the Gospels we see how often the disciples blew it, fell short, let Jesus down, showed little faith, and Jesus still connected with them. He still found reason to disciple them and keep them in the circle. At times they all showed faithlessness. But Jesus kept His relationship with His disciples. His kindness should be a catalyst, a motivation, to reach out to one another in kindness. We must find people with similar interests and connect with them. It is the responsibility for every Christian to build strong relationships with other Christians and pre-Christians.