Secrets of Great Relationships February 22, 2004 – by Dr. John Townsend
Welcome
to our series on GREAT RELATIONSHIPS and how you can have them! We all
desire the good things a thriving, healthy relationship provides-things
like love, tenderness, intimacy, companionship, security, protection,
help and more. God wants you to have all these things, and He provides
a way for you to experience these good things: through connection. God
created you for connection, both with Himself and other people, and He
has designed ways to help you grow into the relationships you need and
long for. We are excited about your own prospects to create great
relationships, whether you want to improve a struggling one, or make a
good one great.
In this first article of three, we wanted to start with the foundation and beginning of any great relationship. That foundation is grace. This
is a word that you often hear describing our spiritual relationship
with God, and that is the origin of it. Grace is, briefly defined, unmerited favor,
and is the basis of how God relates to us, by favoring us through love
and not through performance: "For it is by grace you have been saved,
through faith-and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God (Eph.
2:8)." It is favors that God provides to us that we could never provide
for ourselves.
Front Porch Reflections 