Five People You Need In Your Life: A Small Group Bible Study Guide to Establishing Healthy Christian Relationships

By Oscar Moses

Establishing Christian relationships within a congregation is important. As a pastor for seventeen years, I have had the experience of observing people, their trends, behaviors, and relationships. I've learned that in many instances, people respond to God and life based on the relationships they have established. It's simple. The people you surround yourself with will impact you in one way or another. Who you are and where you are right now has been influenced by who you choose to be in relationships with. Our relationships can have good or bad consequences concerning our relationship with God. Let's be clear. You cannot choose your family, but you can choose your friends. Establishing stronger Christian relationships within a congregation is vital to the overall health and mission of a church and to the individual spiritual maturation of its congregants. Relationships are critical, and this book is critical for the church right now. In these perilous times, it becomes incumbent upon the church to take the responsibility of building stronger Christian lives with a biblical worldview of God and relationships to counter the culture of new age religion and relationships. Five People You Need in Your Life is a small group study guide that will present five biblical models of relationships that are critical. This book encourages the congregation individually and corporately in 5 areas: Mediocrity in Ministry-Challenge Caring for the Comfortless-Comfort Cheering on the Saints-Celebration Boundaries for Bad Behavior-Correction Connection to the Kingdom Agenda-Covenant Five People You Need in Your Life is a great tool for small group Bible study. Each lesson will pinpoint areas where God strategically places people in our lives to make the journey of life more productive for the Kingdom.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 17, 2020
• ISBN: 9781098009021

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Five People You Need In Your Life

A Small Group Bible Study Guide to Establishing Healthy Christian Relationships

Dr. Oscar T. Moses

Copyright © 2019 by Dr. Oscar T. Moses

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

People Who Challenge You

People Who Will Comfort You

People Who Celebrate You

People Who Correct You

People Who Covenant with You

No Greater Love

Foreword

Dr. Richard Nelson

My first memory of meeting Reverend Dr. Oscar T. Moses would be spring 1985 or so. He had come with his grandfather, the Reverend J. A. Allen, to a Baptist district association meeting. I knew Reverend Allen all of my life as an older cousin. He and my grandmother were the children of two sisters. So Reverend Moses and I were introduced as kinfolks. Fast forward to May 2000, graduation day McCormick Theological Seminary and standing in the group of all my family and friends is Reverend Allen. I thought he had come to congratulate me. However, he had come to celebrate with his grandson who had also graduated with his masters of arts in theological studies degree. And, from that day, our kinship developed.

I invited Dr. Moses to preach at the church I served and discovered him to be every bit of the preacher his grandfather was. (Reverend. J. A. Allen was one of the most powerful and popular preacher of his day.) I remember telling everyone, including Reverend Moses, that he was a better preacher than he realizes.

Some preachers are use naturally gifted. Some are talented, some scholarly. Dr. Moses possesses all three and more. He has prepared himself academically; he is a talented voice and natural orator and most importantly the Spirit of God is upon him.

The Bible speaks of times when God interrupts the norm to make his will known. In these times, God uses the human spirit to shine light on our way so that we may see his will.

In 1 Samuel 3:1, the New King James Bible reads, Then the boy Samuel ministered to the LORD before Eli. And the word of the LORD was rare in those days; [there was] no widespread revelation.

The Family Bible Commentary says of this verse, no open vision; literally, vision was not spread abroad, that is, revelations from God were not common. Those who are blessed with a fullness of divine instruction and with all the means of grace, but very faintly realize the sad condition of such as are without them, wandering in darkness and the shadow of death. Adam and Clark commentary says there was no open vision. There was no public accredited prophet; one with whom the secret of the Lord was known to dwell, and to whom all might have recourse in cases of doubt or public emergency. Dr. Moses is an accredited prophet.

Jamison-Fausset-Brown commentary says, the word of the Lord was precious in those days. It was very rarely known to the Israelites, and in point of fact, only two prophets are mentioned as having appeared during the whole administration of the judges (Judges 4:4; 6:8). There was no open vision, no publicly recognized prophet whom the people could consult, and from whom they might learn the will of God. There must have been certain indubitable evidences by which a communication from heaven could be distinguished.

Dr. Moses’ book, Five People You Need in Your Life is a light for this dark age. In this age of social media, where we are valued by the number of people who follow us or who are signed on as friends and still most live isolated lives. With social disconnection killing us, we need a biblical perspective on how to live life more abundantly. Five People You Need in Your Life will help us connect to those who really matter and make a positive impact on our life.

Five People You Need in Your Life is a much needed and timely resource for the Body of Christ. The thoughtful insights and scripture-based analyses will enable the most novice among us to grow to spiritual maturity. I wholeheartedly recommend it to all of the national conventions, to our state and local congress of Christian education as a study course. This work would be a help to the local church as it struggles to turn the tide of declining membership and the disconnect of our generations. But more importantly, it is a valuable tool to aide to adjusting the thinking of Christians who fall in the trap of the prophet Elijah, 1 Kings 18:10. We all need someone in our life. And so the old hymn of the church reminds us. There’s not a friend like the lowly Jesus no not one. No not one.

Be blessed in your reading.

Five People You Need in Your Life is dedicated to the sainted memory of my maternal grandparents, Reverend Joseph A. Allen and Dorothy Webb Allen, and paternal grandparents, O. T. Moses and Bobbie Lou Moses, for their spiritual investments.

Additionally, this work is dedicated to my parents, the late Oscar Moses and Rosetta Moses-Hill, for providing unconditional love and a strong Christian foundation that has anchored the faith tenets within the writer’s heart. This work is dedicated to the late R’ Lillian Gladney for her unselfish love and sacrificial living and to the membership of the Mount Hermon Missionary Baptist Church where I serve as pastor.

This work is further dedicated to the writer’s brother and sister, David Allen Moses and Kelly Ann Moses, for their loving and prayerful support throughout the entire process. It is also dedicated to the writer’s niece and nephew, Taylor Vaughn Moses and David Andrew Moses, and cousin, Roderiqua Williams. It is for these young persons that the I