Time to Detox: Relationships
About this series:
It's a common thought at the start of a New Year: "What changes can I make for a healthier life this year?" It's a good question, but one that's so quickly submerged by the return of old habits as January turns to February. But what would it look like to really make some changes in January 2024? To take steps for an all around healthier life? What would it look like to detox our lives?
Detox (or detoxification) is 'a process or period of time in which one abstains from or rids the body of toxic or unhealthy substances.' Everyone develops unhealthy thoughts, habits and patterns of life and much of the time we either put up with them or just don't have the courage to address them. So, at the start of 2024, we're going to take four weeks to refresh, reset and restore some of the key aspects of our lives, helping us prepare for a healthier 2024.
About this talk:
What makes for a good life? That’s the question a group of scientists had in 1938. They began to track the health of 268 male students at Harvard University. Later they added to the study 456 boys from some of the most deprived parts of inner-city Boston, tracking them through the subsequent years. Those who are still alive continue to be engaged in the study, and over 2,000 of their children are now included. Each is asked, every two years, about their health, home life and work life. Their medical records are examined and they are videoed talking about their deepest concerns. The conclusions from the study are fascinating. What makes for a good life? Not fame, money or working harder. ‘Close relationships, more than money or fame, are what keep people happy throughout their lives…Those ties protect people from life’s discontents, help to delay mental and physical decline, and are better predictors of long and happy lives than social class, IQ, or even genes…[Researchers] found a strong correlation between [the] men’s flourishing lives and their relationships with family, friends, and community.’ The current study director concludes, ‘The good life is built with good relationships.’
Relationships are one of the greatest gifts in life and also one of the greatest challenges in life. Healthy relationships bring joy, laughter, happiness, a sense of self-worth, reduced anxiety, better physical health, a sense of belonging. Unhealthy relationships can lead in opposite directions.
We know from other passages in the New Testament that it is God who produces in us the qualities that are conducive to healthy relationships - for example it is the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) and the relational results of being filled with the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18-6:9). But here in Ephesians 4:17-5:2 the emphasis is on actions we are to take as we relate to others on the basis of having become a new creation.
The statements, “to put off your old self” (v 22) and, “to put on the new self” (v 24) are past actions - ie. you were taught to do so when you came to Christ. A fundamental change occurred when the Ephesian believers became followers of Jesus. Paul expresses the same point in different terms in Romans 6 where he speaks of having died with Christ and having risen with Christ - ie. past events with present implications. So here in Ephesians 4 the fact they have “put off your old self” and “put on the new self” has present implications in how they relate to one another, 4:25-5:2. Specifically, they are to:
Put off falsehood and put on truthfulness.
Put off anger (and put on peace).
Put off stealing and put on usefulness.
Put off unwholesome talk and put on speech that builds up.
Put off the negative qualities of “all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.”
Put on the positive qualities that Imitate God in being kind, compassionate and forgiving; in love and sacrifice.
It’s always striking just how practical the Bible is. Despite being so far removed from our day, following Paul’s list of instructions in God’s timeless Word would go a long way towards giving our relationships a detox, ridding them of those attitudes within us that lead to pride, cynicism, bitterness, favouritism and holding grudges and leading, as dearly loved new creations in Christ, to build relationships that are modelled on the way God has treated us.
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