Last night at Fusion, we dealt with #3 on our list – LET SOMEBODY IN.
We all have personal space issues. Once someone gets to close physically, we do what we must to achieve a healthy perimeter. Emotionally, we are even more determined to keep people at arms’ length. We’ve been hurt. We don’t know how to trust. We want deep relationships, but that is so risky. So number 3 on our list is to “Let Somebody In.”
When we build up walls around us emotionally, we revert back to God’s initial problem with us – we were alone. It is interesting in 1 John 1:5-9 that John is speaking about not living in the sin, letting sin reign in the darkness so that we can have fellowship with God. But even more interesting is that he says if we live in the light, we become exposed, we let ourselves be seen, we have fellowship with….
You would think he says God here, but he actually says “one another.” God knows he wired us to have something critically contingent upon authentic fellowship with other people. Relationships are always moving – either toward greater depth or toward more superficiality.
Where are you? Fellowship doesn’t grow in the dark. And do you know that out of a list of pastors who fell out of the ministry, what one common denominator was? No one truly knew what was going on with them on the inside. No one knew where they struggled. Where they were fearful. Where they needed help. And because of pride, the fall was great.
It is better to be real with one person in your life than one day having all your baggage appear for the world to see because you never dealt with it.
1 John 1:5-9; Gen. 3:7-13; 1 Peter 4:8; Prov. 20:19
Travis Agnew serves as the Lead Pastor of Rocky Creek Church in Greenville, SC. His most recent book is Just (About) Married.
