Quotes about Relationships

With our touch, Jesus becomes our scapegoat. In his touch, Jesus takes our sin and absorbs our shame (Psalm 69:9; Romans 15:3), and we receive his righteousness. If you prefer symmetry in your relationships, in which you give a gift of similar value to the one you receive, you have not yet touched Jesus.

Knowing and being known—by design we enjoy human connections, and those connections are forged over time through normal interactions and questions that gradually ask for more. Such connections are the foundations for mutual help, and they are helpful in themselves since they are expressions of love.

Since the desires for power and control are in every heart, you don't have to look overseas for lawless brutality. It happens every day between parents and children, boyfriends and girlfriends, husbands and wives. Where there is injustice, shame will be part of its fallout.

Love is able to see past the clutter of a disorganized life.

Love is the opposite of anger. Anger is disdain, hatred, and contempt.

If you are casual about anger and unprepared, you will lose and so will those around you.

Anger shows contempt. You are better than they. You are smarter, more righteous—you are above and they are below. Anger tears down. It kills relationships.

Regarding other people, our problem is that we need them (for ourselves) more than we love them (for the glory of God). The task God sets for us is to need them less and love them more. Instead of looking for ways to manipulate others, we will ask God what our duty is toward them.

Imagine how aloneness could gradually be banished.

Once we pray with or for someone, we are in the ongoing story of his life, and it is an honor to be there.

We don't aim to draw out problems so that we can be helpers. We are simply interested in knowing another person, which is a basic feature of everyday love.

Most gifts emerge in the context of serving people.