Faithfulness in Relationships

June’s Fidelity Month serves as a timely reminder of the importance of faithfulness in our relationships with God, family, friends, and community. In this episode, we explore the biblical meaning of fidelity, why it matters in a culture that often rejects commitment, and how God’s perfect faithfulness serves as our model. Through Scripture, practical examples, and honest discussion about our own failures, we examine how faithfulness strengthens marriages, friendships, and society while ultimately pointing us back to the forgiveness and grace found in Christ. 

Transcript

Cold Open Measuring Ourselves

SPEAKER_02 0:01

On today's episode.

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Maturity as a Christian occurs. Real, real hardcore maturity occurs when you take that hard look into the standard of God's word, and then you look in the mirror and you realize all the times you're you were the infidel. You you were not practicing fidelity to God and allegiance to his word. And then it compels you to turn to the one who was, which is Christ.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

Welcome to the Life Challenges Podcast from Christian Life Resources. Our world today presents people with complicated issues of life and death, marriage and family, health, and science. It can be a struggle to understand or deal with them. We're here to help by bringing good information and a fresh biblical perspective to these matters and more. Join us now for Life Challenges.

Fidelity Month And Definitions

SPEAKER_02 0:58

Hi, and welcome back. I'm Christa Pochretz, and I'm here today with pastors Bob Fleischman and Jeff Samelson. And today we are going to talk about faithfulness in relationships. We are recording this episode in June here. And this is, I guess, something that Jeff told me is called Fidelity Month. And so Jeff, can you explain a little bit about what Fidelity Month is and where it comes from and why we're going to talk about it today?

SPEAKER_01 1:29

Yeah, if you haven't heard much about it, I think we may have mentioned it here in the past, but if you haven't heard about it, it's because it's a fairly new kind of thing. I'll just uh read a few paragraphs from the guy who started it. This is from Professor Robert P. George, who's out at Princeton. In 2023, I read about a rather disturbing Wall Street Journal poll indicating a precipitous decline in our fellow Americans' belief in the importance of such values as patriotism, religion, family, and community, the values that used to unite Americans despite our many differences. The statement, no man is an island, is a cliche, but it's true. As human beings, we all find fulfillment not in selfish pursuits, but in the steadfast bonds we form with others. There are a million things we can and should do to restore the faith of our people and begin to heal the dreadful division in our country. I'd like to invite you to join one small one. By the authority vested in me by absolutely no one, I have declared June to be Fidelity Month, dedicated to the importance of fidelity to God, spouses and families, and our country and communities. And he's taken it from being just his thing. He's got a you know a whole organization and they've got a website, fidelitymonth.com. And it's just a you know, one first time I heard about it, which I think was in 2023 when he first announced it. I said, that's a really good idea. Because for most people in America these days, if you think, well, what month is June?

SPEAKER_02 2:58

Pride month. Right. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

And um he was very explicit when he started this. I I'm not you know doing this as you know as a reaction to in in the sense that it's gonna be like everything that's wrong with Pride Month, this is what we're gonna be here. But it is a good option, it's a good alternative in a sense, perhaps you might say. But you know, if you're gonna have a focus, let's have a positive focus on this is the things that's missing that we need more of in our society, rather than what we as conservative Christians might be tempted to do, which is have the negative focus on everything that that the Pride Month stands for that is wrong. But at the same time, Fidelity Month ends up addressing a lot of the things that contributed to the rise of all the LGBTQ problems uh in society. So I just thought it was a very uh useful uh thing. And you know, if I'm gonna observe anything uh in June, um I'm gonna observe Fidelity Month and and and not the other thing.

SPEAKER_00 4:00

Well, and Robert George is not a not a softball guy. Oh no. Yeah, he's he's quite brilliant. And I found it interesting that he declared it fidelity month. There's a lot of synonyms that he probably could have gotten away with, but fidelity is going to raise the hackles of some people, even though it's I think it's a very positive statement, because fidelity uh invites, you know, aligning yourself with certain standards. It's more than loyalty, because that was the first thing when I j when when I saw the topic come to us, I thought, well, let me get out there and let me So what's the difference between fidelity and loyalty? Well, you know, it it always reminds me of my mother always uh invoking, well, there's honor among thieves. You know, there there could be loyalty uh for loyalty to things that are not always right, but fidelity it requires you aligning with a certain standard that generally is beyond yourself. For us, it would be, of course, the standard of God's word. But part of the LGBTQ plus plus plus uh movement and things of that notion uh is rooted in the fact that you you can't really have these strong statements of absolutes. You can say, well, God is love, and they would accept that, you know. Only the generic stuff, but a fidelity emphasis gets it's a deeper dive.

SPEAKER_02 5:23

Yeah. I mean, Jeff, do you have anything to add to that, as Bob said, like with loyalty or anything else that we should think about when we think about the definition of fidelity?

SPEAKER_01 5:33

Well, if you know, it's one of these cases where fidelity is the nice uh kind of Latin root word. But if we want to go for something that's a bit more uh common, it basically means the same thing as faithfulness. Um and I I think he made the right choice because it's a word that's just a bit uh it just enough above our normal use that it's less likely to have its meaning decay or corrupt. But uh it's faithfulness to a to a person, to a cause or a belief by continuing loyalty and support to it or to to the to the person. And uh you know, one of the things that that Bob was was getting at that I really appreciate is fed fidelity implies a standard. It's not just loosey goosey relative. There's a sense of duty. It's not just an emotional bond or a connection, but there's a sense of, yeah, there's there's I have made this commitment and therefore I will remain committed to this. And also part of that is that that you keep your agreements, you keep your word, you keep your commitments, even when circumstances change, uh, even when doing so just no longer seems to benefit you, you still stay faithful to it. I think one of the reasons we we have to talk about this a little more is fidelity is one of those things that tends to only be f appreciated fully once it's been broken or lost.

SPEAKER_02 6:59

Yeah, no, I I think that's really great that you brought that up because I think more commonly we know of the word infidelity. I mean, at least that's that that's what I you know am more maybe familiar with, um, just hearing, right, about infidelity. And so what can we kind of keep in mind with I mean, both of those, like the fidelity, but then also like the flip side in in recognizing infidelity?

How Infidelity Spreads

SPEAKER_01 7:27

Well, uh we'll get into the the theological aspect of things a little bit later, but you know, we recognize fidelity when we see it in good marriages, in strong friendships. Uh I think one place we'd we'd say we really see it would be like in in what you might call a military brotherhood, you know, that that that sense of connection that these guys have, that certain alliances, sometimes some business partnerships, that's a that's a place where we'd say where you know there there should be faithfulness, even if if there isn't always. Marriage is perhaps the where it is most clearly, intimately and essentially demonstrated. But uh the flip side, you know, as I said, infidelity is a lot easier to recognize. Spouse who commits adultery, uh divorce, when children are abandoned by their parents, when a a friend betrays you, uh promises broken, somebody forsakes a vow or or an oath. And you can take it even beyond that to whole ideas of open marriage, really all sex outside of marriage, dishonesty, friendships that are nothing more than transactional, all those kinds of things really are signs of an absence of fidelity, of faithfulness.

SPEAKER_00 8:34

You know, during the 60s there was kind of this movement to start stepping away from absolutes. I remember the old situational ethics movement of Joseph Fletcher, the idea that you can't really nail down these hard absolutes. And and the problem with it is that it had a lot of appeal to the people who are anti-establishment. Open marriage, we don't have to remain committed. Basically it an infidel life. So what I found interesting is when you read scripture and you see how often God ties relationships with his people on the same plane as a relationship between a husband and wife. And that's because a broken fidelity between a husband and wife always carried with it the gravest of consequences, sometimes capital punishment, but also just socially. Even when you got Joseph quietly was planning to quietly divorce, marry, and so forth, because it carried such severe consequences. Why? Because it is that step above loyalty. It's a commitment, it's a wholehearted commitment. It's why we preachers, when we're getting prepared to do uh do weddings and we get involved with premarriage counseling, we don't talk about the loyalty that exists within a marriage. We really like to emphasize the fidelity that exists within a marriage. It's a third party standard by which we live by. And I'm going to take care of you through richer and poorer, sickness and health, life and death. It's a stronger commitment. Why? Because we're the direct beneficiaries of the greatest perfect commitment like that in Christ. I can't get out of my head what Jeff said about that you understand it better when you see it on the opposite end. You know, and you see that, you know, it's Pride Month and you you see what's going on today with open marriages and polemony and all that kind of stuff. The idea is that you you surrender fidelity for infidelity and and then it just snowballs. Like because once you surrender fidelity, um, where do you stop? Where does it end? And then on what basis?

SPEAKER_02 10:43

Yeah, you know, I I think too like when we talk about fidelity and everything too, we can see non-Christians, atheists, I mean even pagans, they can be faithful. People can value faithfulness, recognize it in others. Uh so how can we still say that fidelity starts with God and our relationships with Him? How do we see it differently as Christians?

SPEAKER_01 11:10

Yeah, well, for us, well, and really for everybody, but you know, we understand it. God defines fidelity. He he exemplifies it in every way and has from the very beginning of our world. What God says he's going to do, he does. If he makes a promise, he keeps his promise. He also never says anything more than he's planning to actually do. There's a a perfect alignment between his stated intentions and what what he actually follows through on. Yeah, so that's that's it in his example. But we can also talk about how with him, his faithfulness is rooted both in his nature and in his love. Because he loves us so much, could never be conceivable that he would be unfaithful in any way. But it's also displaying his nature, that it it's just not possible for him to be faithless in that sense. And it is kind of interesting, you know, just because of our words there, we think of faith normally as something that human beings have in God. And it seems almost strange to think of God as being faithful. I mean, but but the point of being faithful is that you are trustworthy. And we can trust in God 100% for absolutely everything, because there is nothing in him that is ever going to fail our trust. So he is, is and always will be faithful in all things. And so that we have him as that ultimate standard that that defines faithfulness for us.

SPEAKER_00 12:41

Well, and somebody had put down an analogy to because I like I said, I was trying to get a grip on this, is the the distinction between fidelity or faithfulness with loyalty. And they said, well, in an ecclesiastical sense, you could be loyal to a church, and the church decides that it's going to separate from the Word of God. They're going to start picking and choosing the parts they like, ignoring the parts they don't like, and you stick with them. Why? Because you're loyal. But you're no longer it's no longer a fidelity issue because the standard, the objective standard by which you bound yourself, which is scripture, that's been chopped up. And so Christians are called to fidelity. We all are. And it's when you when you talk about how do I glorify God, how do I accomplish my prime directive in life, it begins with fidelity.

God’s Faithfulness Sets The Standard

SPEAKER_00 13:33

It begins with looking at what it is that glorifies God, and then you commit to it. I think maturity as a Christian occurs, real, real hardcore maturity occurs when you take that hard look into the the standard of God's word, and then you look in the mirror and you realize all the times you're you were the infidel. You you were not practicing fidelity to God and allegiance to his word. And then it it compels you to turn to the one who was, which is Christ.

SPEAKER_02 14:05

Yeah. No, and Bob Ju, you kind of had started mentioning some scripture references to what are maybe some other like positive and negative examples of faithfulness that we can find in Scripture.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

Well, of course, the perfect example is Christ. Part of it is that why we start with Christ as the perfect example is because he doesn't doesn't sway from it at all. We just had um our pastor brought communion yesterday because we received shut in communion here for for Diane. And and he was uh talking about one of the things that struck him in Mark's account of um uh preparing for the final supper. And m Mark says uh that Jesus tells him, you know, get me a get me a donkey and uh just tell him it's for the master and it'll be fine, and and get the upper room and tell him it's for the master and it'll be fine. He he knows the future. He knows what's going to happen and everything. And knowing all that and then knowing what happens with the disciples, knowing what happens with Judas, and then let's let's not just be historical. Knowing what we are like he just says, put away the sword. I'm going ahead, I'm going to do this. And it's it's a level of fidelity that we see that is unequaled in scripture. Because it it's interesting. Now I'm I'm preaching on the the part out of Matthew 16, you know, where uh who do people say I am, Jesus says. And Peter goes, You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God. And and then Jesus says, Well, on this rock I will build my church, and the the gates of Hades will not uh prevail against it. And you don't have to read too much further to see Jesus. He immediately gives his first very explicit announcement of what what lies ahead for him, and immediately Peter says, Oh no, that's no that's not gonna happen. And Jesus says, Get behind me, Satan. So there's infidelity. In other words, we love God w when we agree with him. And and all of a sudden, Peter could make this wonderful statement, but he had already hemmed in how he was going to understand God. And that I think is at the core of infidelity is that we're willing to to step beyond because we no longer agree with God. God was fine as long as I agreed with him.

SPEAKER_01 16:29

Yeah. When I was trying to think of biblical examples, I had the same problem mentioned before. It's so much easier to come up with the negative examples than the positive ones. So I'll start with the negative, some of which are more familiar than others. In the book of Genesis, Judah and Tamar. Judah did not do right by Tamar, who was the uh um uh the the widow of was it two of his sons? Yeah. And uh he really did not do right by her, and he was shamed by her into eventually do doing right. There was the example of King Saul, who uh was not faithful to David, to his people, to his promises, to the prophet Samuel, all those kinds of things. Uh there was great King David, who was not faithful when it came to his his own family, especially his his daughter Tamar. It's funny how that name comes up twice. And uh I think one of the most vivid examples there is um the prophet Hosea, who was faithful, and God had him marry Gomer, who was not. And you know, that was used by God as a an illustration of Israel's unfaithfulness and uh how how God had to deal with that. But for some positive, we have Joseph and Potiphar's wife back in the book of Genesis. Joseph remained faithful to the wife he didn't yet have, and remained faithful to his responsibilities to Potiphar by not sleeping with with his wife. We do see David here with David and Jonathan and their friendship, that they were very faithful to each other. Jonathan uh in his life, and then David showed his faithfulness to Jonathan's children and grandchildren after uh after Jonathan was dead. Mary and Joseph, wonderful examples there of faithfulness to each other. And uh we'd see the Apostle Paul not so much with stories, but just how he was faithful to his commitments and how he was faithful to the truth. You have that example where where he's kind of having to correct Peter that we hear about in Galatians, when when Peter was doctrinally wrong and Paul had to stick to his guns there when it would have been very convenient and comfortable to do the opposite.

SPEAKER_02 18:41

Well, thank you for those uh those biblical examples.

Practical Tests Of Faithfulness

SPEAKER_02 18:44

I think we're gonna kind of shift, you know, into maybe some practical questions. So there are a few I have that we'll just go through. The first one up here is in what way is it unfaithful to flirt as a married person with someone who's not your spouse, or to flirt as a single person with someone who is married?

SPEAKER_01 19:04

Okay, this is this is one I I would always bring this up in connection to the verse uh from Hebrews 13. Marriage is to be held in honor by all, and the marriage bed is to be kept undefiled for God will judge sexually immoral people and adulterers. But the first part of that, marriage is to be held in honor by all. We normally think of that strictly in terms of, well, I've got to honor my own marriage, but it also means you honor other people's marriage. You even honor your future spouse, even if you don't have one yet. And that means that um, you know, if you're flirting, and we don't need to necessarily define it here, but in the those kinds of situations that in the question, that's that's presenting an opportunity that is not a proper opportunity as something attractive to be considered. And it involves uh one or both parties being unfaithful to a spouse. If I'm flirting with with some waitress or somebody that I I meet in a club or something like that, and I'm you know making it sound as though, oh yeah, well, you know, we could have a future together, which is kind of the whole point of flirting or whatever, when I've got a wife, I mean, that's that's not proper. Or even if I were single and she were married, that would still be saying, Oh, well, you know, you can forget about that husband of yours. Think for now about what it would be like to be with me instead. That's not honoring marriage. And that's the kind of thing that I think a lot of people just don't even really think about, and particularly when you're single, you don't think about that in quite the same way.

SPEAKER_00 20:34

Taking that and kind of building around that a little bit. One of the cornerstone ways that we express our Christian faith is we glorify God by loving God above all things and loving our neighbor. And Philippians 2 talks about you love your neighbor to the point that you are actually put their interests ahead of your own. And so when you use the illustration that Jeff was talking about of even if you if you're out playing the field because you're single, start flirting with somebody who's already got a commitment, uh, you've got a problem. Because why? Because if you're being faithful, then you are thinking of their interests ahead of your own. And the problem with that is that when you're when you're walking in this domain, you're actually putting your interests ahead of theirs, and that's always going to be a problem.

SPEAKER_02 21:21

Yeah. Another one here, too, to just kind of think about is in what way is it unfaithful to simply ignore what God's word has to say about something. I think we do this a lot as Christians. God's word says a lot of things. And there are sometimes those things where it's like, oh, we're just we're just not gonna like tell like talk about that right now. Or, you know, and but you know, just kind of thinking that that really can be a form of unfaithfulness to God when we are pressed up with Something that he says, and then we just kind of choose to not address it or ignore it because it makes us uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_01 22:07

Yeah. I mean, this is particularly true in a kind of a formal sense, if you have been confirmed, you've taken a vow, you've made a promise, I I'm going to pay attention to what God has to say. But even if you've never been through something that formal by saying, I am going to be God's child, you know, I am f going to follow Christ, you're you're making a commitment there that you are to be faithful to. And if you choose to say, well, when it's comfortable, I'm going to follow Jesus, but when it's not, then I'm just going to pretend I don't hear what he has to say. That's not being faithful. That's that's uh uh that that's a spiritual infidelity. You know, and you know if we can use the you know kind of common language today, talk about in terms of identity. If you have identified yourself as a disciple of Christ by ignoring what God's word have to say, is you're choosing not to be who Jesus calls his disciples to be.

SPEAKER_02 23:08

It's an interesting subject to talk about because I think that many of us fall short in a lot of areas. Like as we're going through this, and you know, Jeff, you have another one on this list here too. In what ways is it unfaithful to watch on your own the final episodes of a streaming series you've been watching with your spouse? Um, not that I've ever done that, you know, but um, but like it just I I mean it it can it can creep up in so many ways too. I I mean as Christians we always want to think, okay, like yeah, we we know we're sinful and stuff, but surely like we're we're trying, we're we're doing it, we're we're keeping what we can. But you know, even just a small example like that just really shows how we're constantly missing the mark with with that.

SPEAKER_01 23:59

Yeah, and as I said, marriage is where we really see this most intimately and essentially in terms of fidelity, but it you know, the lessons there apply all around. But there's a a minimalist approach to fidelity that is basically saying, well, I haven't slept with anybody else, so I've been faithful to my wife. You know, anything up to that point, that's still okay. And we picked up on that with with with the flirting aspect of it. But once you're starting to suggest that, oh no, there's a line that can be drawn there, and that you're you're already getting into trouble. That you know, God's word doesn't work with that. He has a a single will that you will be faithful to your spouse. And uh it's not always going to be in terms of sexual things either. So that's kind of what I was getting at with that example, watching that streaming. So I mean, you've made a commitment, even if it wasn't a formal commitment, it's understood that this is something you're doing together, you know, and by not that that's seen as somehow being uh untrustworthy or or unfaithful. I read every once in a while stories about cases of uh husband and wife that there's no question of sexual infidelity going on, but you know, there's a problem maybe with the in-laws, and the husband's always siding with his parents over against his wife when there's a conflict over something like that. Well, that's not being faithful to your spouse. You're being incorrectly faithful to your parents in the in that kind of case. And but at the same time, you know, because as you were pointing out, Krista, you know, we we're always making mistakes with these things. We are sinful creatures. We we never get the perfection, this this side of eternity. And that's where it really gets practically really difficult.

Hard Cases Grace And Repair

SPEAKER_01 25:42

If I as a pastor in a parish um were to have, you know, a a woman comes to me, or I'll just say uh the couple comes to me, and uh the wife says, Well, I caught my husband um watching pornography, and uh the Bible says, you know, Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount that if a man looks on a woman to lust after her, that he has committed adultery with her already in his heart. So I want a divorce. Because by looking at that, he has lusted after that woman and he has committed adultery, and therefore I have biblical grounds for divorce. Okay. It's not quite that simple, is it? I think anybody listening to this is gonna say, there's a lot more you need to get into here. Is this a one-time thing? Is this a longtime thing? Is this an addiction? You know, what was his intention when he was doing this? Does this really count as infidelity uh in such a way that it breaks the marriage in the marriage bond in the way that uh you know we we consider as biblical grounds for divorce? And my whole point in bringing this up is simply to say that this is tough stuff, and we have to, you know, uh obviously have have the attitude of Christ with this, which means lots of forgiveness to go around, lots of humility recognizing that I'm no perfect. I mean, you know, there's there are the you know, just as an example, whatever, there's the woman who you might be really upset to know that her her husband is is looking at other women uh and think that that's unfaithfulness. But what about the times that she looks at the the husband of the couple down the street and says, you know, I think it would I'd really like to be married to him instead of my husband, even if it's just for a moment, because he, you know, they've got a nicer house or car or or because because he's kinder to her in public or something like that. That's the infidelity also in that moment, but we're not going to say that's breaking the marriage either. So it's complicated, but you know, this is why we we have a wonderful loving, forgiving God that we can go to with our problems and we can work things out. And part of fidelity is that even when you mess up, even when the bond has been broken or close to broken, um, that you still say, this is still something of value that we're going to work to keep.

SPEAKER_02 27:56

Yeah. Yeah. I I mean, I never really knew about Fidelity Month, but now there's really quite a lot there. Bob, you know, any any final thoughts as we bring this episode to a close here?

SPEAKER_00 28:09

Aaron Ross Powell, I uh do a lot of reading and listening to a lot of sermons from a wide assortment of preachers. And one of the um the themes that have come out in just a series of sermons I've listened to recently is how we all worship something. Even people who say, I'm not religious or I'm not, we all worship something. You know, it's something that controls your life. And and one of the things that happens is that when you when you dig into scripture and you see what fidelity looks like to God and to all your commitments and not just the sexual commitments within a a marriage, but to all your commitments and what fidelity looks like, you know, you pretty pretty soon feel like the Apostle Paul, where he says, you know, the good that I would do that I do not, evil I would not do, what a wretched man I am. And uh and led Paul uh later, um, Timothy to call himself the the chief of sinners. And you feel that way, um, but you bask in the in what Christ has done for you, which is which is kind of how the fidelity challenge finds its solution, and that because this isn't an argument for uber morality, this is an argument for just understanding where your allegiance lies. And whenever these discussions take place, it's always a bitter reminder to me that that that those two forces, the old Adam and the the new man, are at work in me all the time. And sometimes you you try to play both sides of the field, and uh you find your um you find your fidelity in Christ. And when w we are sitting with friends and neighbors on a practical level, and they are they're confessing to you that something is not right, that that and it could be infidelity in their marriage, but it could also just be infidelity in their relationship with other people. You eventually want to get them back to Christ. You want to get him get him or get her there so that they find in Christ the solution that they couldn't find within themselves. The way I always like to say is so you get up, you brush the dirt off, and you start walking again. And chances are you're gonna fall again because you still have the battle going on. And so it was interesting at the end of Paul's life, uh, I have finished the race, you know, and uh I've kept the faith. And and his his definition of the race was an awful lot of falling down. But he always got cleaned up and he does it. So it it's an interesting topic. I just wouldn't want anyone to to misunderstand that that we have to all live up to this perfect level of morality because we have all fallen on our faces in in this regard. And what it's telling us is God's standard is clear and he said it's actually established for our good. And so it's in our best interest.

SPEAKER_02 31:01

Yeah, no, and I think too, yes, like there is that real desire for us to be faithful in I mean, in our relationship with God, um, and also in our relationship with other people.

SPEAKER_00 31:12

Yeah, and when you don't have that desire, that's where you gotta ask yourself, well, well, what is my God? That's a hard question to ask. And I think there have been times in my life where I felt that way where where you know all of a sudden, you know, oh I slipped up. Well, I don't feel real bad and everything. Well, why don't I feel bad? What what other great goal was I trying to accomplish that I find good within that context? Well, I wasn't being uh it wasn't any practice of faithfulness to God. It was a faithfulness to this other God I created in my life.

SPEAKER_01 31:44

Yeah, I think it's also helpful to remember, you know, when we set ourselves this this proper Christian, godly goal of of being faithful, who are we doing this for? We're not just doing it for ourselves, because it's good. I mean, it is good for us to be faithful people and trustworthy people. We're definitely not doing it for God in the sense that he's gonna reward us for this, you know, that we're gaining points with him somehow for uh by doing it. I mean, it is good for us to remain faithful to our Lord. We're not even just doing it for our spouses and family members and friends and such that we are being faithful to. We're also doing this for the benefit of everybody else, all of our neighbors. You know, think about this as how it affects a society or a nation. If there's nobody who's faithful, that's not going to be good for society. If, on the other hand, you and your fellow Christians stand out as people who are faithful, who show others how it's done, that's good for society. And it's also good for you for your witness in that it points them to a better way, and that better way whose name is Christ.

SPEAKER_02 32:50

Well, thank you both for this discussion today, and we thank all of our listeners too.

Closing And Listener Next Steps

SPEAKER_02 32:56

And if you have any questions on this topic, you can reach us at lifechallenges.us. Thanks a lot, and we'll see you back next time. Bye.

SPEAKER_01 33:04

Thank you for joining us for the Life Challenges Podcast of Christian Life Resources. Please consider subscribing to this podcast, giving us a review wherever you access it, and sharing it with friends. We're here to help. So if you have questions on today's topic or other life issues, you can submit them as well as comments or suggestions for future episodes at lifechallenges.us, or email us at podcast at ChristianLiferesources.com. You can find past episodes and other valuable information at lifechallenges.us, so please check it out. For more about our parent organization, please visit Christianliferesources.com. May God give you wisdom, love, strength, and peace in Christ for every life challenge.