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Committed to Setting the Captives Free, in the Fear of the Lord! (Luke 4:18, Is 49:8,9, Is 11:2) |
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What is relationship and does it matter?
Today how we relate to one another is changing, mass media and computer communication is beginning to make personal relationships a thing of the past.
It is becoming so easy now to send a 'quick email', or 'give someone a quick ring' and yet how we relate to one another is one of the most important facets of our personality and life.
The impersonal nature of electronic communication can cause us to become casual about developing long term important relationships with other people.
As a result of the bombarding of our senses by television and outside influences, families are communicating less an less and the divorce rate is soaring.
But is relationship so important, does it really matter? Out of all our human experience, the only thing that we can take with us beyond this life is relationship.
Everything we do in life is a relationship. We have a relationship with money, we have a relationship with each other, and we even have a relationship with our car. We have a relationship with everything! Life is about relationship.
Why are successful relationships so difficult to attain? For one, the element of trust is essential. We must arrive at a place where we trust ourselves and others. Essentially we all want is to be honored and respected. We want to feel safe, nurtured, and protected. We want to be validated, loved, and cherished. We also want to make our own choices and have those choices honored. We do not want to be told what to do or how to live our life.
Every relationship we have is a reflection of the relationship we have with God. If we believe that God can love us, then we will believe that others can love us, and if we believe that we are not good enough for God to love, how will we be able to accept the love of others?
However, when his love is mirrored in our relationship with others, then it becomes a reflection of the God kind of covenant love, which we then share with others
RELATIONSHIP TO GOD THROUGH JESUS
The first essential in relationship, is to receive Jesus into your heart, to ask him into your heart and your life. The Bible calls this being 'born again, why is this so important?
Because Jesus knows how vital to us relationship really is and that all relationship comes through our relationship to God. If we are alienated, or cut off from God we cannot have relationship with Him, Jesus wants us to come into this relationship through him, by the Holy Spirit who wants to lead and guide us into all his truth
When we are 'born again' (Click the link below to find out how you can be 'born again') God begins to speak to us through our reborn spirit, this is our vertical relationship with the Father. He begins to teach us about our relationship with other people, which is our horizontal relationship, the way he teaches us is through his word.
Jesus learned the word, he is the word, Jesus prayed the word (I say only what my Father says, I do only what my Father does) why should it be different for us?
If we do what Jesus says (my words) we will get the results that Jesus gets, he said so himself
At first, as the Holy Spirit reveals in us the God kind of love, the love of the Father, his love draws us into him, we do it because of what he has done for us through Christ.
Then we cross the line, leaving our commitment to the world, to become of our own free will, fully committed to him. He will never force us, it is totally our choice to come to him.
When we do, the God kind of love, the love of God, propels or constrains us and pushes and presses us into the Father we are drawn by deep desire into deeper and deeper relationship with Jesus.
This leads us into true relationship that is beyond human understanding.
If there is one thing that will help us get to the next level in our lives, it is relationships in which we are guided by the Holy Spirit, to come into a covenant relationship with another person.
In the book of Samuel, David had a covenant relationship with Jonathan.
1 Sam 18:1, 3. After David had finished talking with Saul, Jonathan became one in spirit with David, and he loved him as himself. And Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as himself.
"By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." In the book of Acts, it was the quality of life and fellowship that caused the world to look in and say, "Behold, how they love one another."
The New Testament Greek word for this love and fellowship is koinonia. It means a relationship with God and other Christians that is interwoven in covenant and implies a deliberate, deep commitment with open, honest caring and sharing. It was commonly used to refer to an enduring commitment of a business partnership or a marriage.
Understanding the importance of covenant relationships is a critical part of fulfilling the will of God for our lives.
There are people God has destined for us to meet, who are there to impart into and impact our lives so we can do what God has called us to do.
It may be their wisdom, expertise, or knowledge that can help us or it may be a specific anointing on their lives that God wants to develop in us. We must be able to recognize and honor covenant relationships because they are bridges to our success and prosperity.
There is something about life that requires us to walk through it with someone else. God never intended for us to live life in isolation, we are not of this world, but we are in the world., which is why relationships are so vital. Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 says something very interesting: Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour.
For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up. Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone? And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken. (Prov 17:17)
The three-fold cord described in this passage can be likened to a relationship that includes God, you, and the covenant relationship He has placed in your life. The Word even talks about how God is in the midst of Believers when they come together. Relationships are the lifeblood of human existence.
As in the case with David and Jonathan, Jonathan gave David his robe and David gave Jonathan his armour sword, bow and belt, symbolising the exchange of strength for weakness, the same way God exchanges with us, His strength for our weaknesses.
Covenant relationships are those relationships that God has divinely placed in our lives. A covenant is a binding agreement between two or more parties that involves the exchange of strengths for weaknesses.
Marriages are covenant relationships because they are designed to operate based on this exchange
Click Here, to go to the section on how to have a successful marriage.
There are other relationships that can be classified as covenant, such as certain God-ordained friendships, business relationships, and mentorships. Sometimes God places father and mother figures in people?fs lives to provide the guidance and direction they never received from their natural mother or father.
Another type of covenant relationship is that which exists between a pastor and congregation. There are people who attend church as a religious routine, and there are those who embrace the man or woman of God who has been called to pastor them as their spiritual mother or father.
God cares about our spiritual growth and development, which is why it is His will that every Christian be a member of a local church. God gives us free will to move churches, but it is His will that we receive wisdom in the church He is leading us to (Duet 12:5, Duet 16:6, 1 Cor 12:11)
When God calls us to a particular church, we should obey Him because He is calling us into covenant with someone in spiritual leadership. The impartation we receive from our pastors and those spiritual leaders God has placed in our lives plays a huge role in our growth and development, not only as Christians but also in our own personal anointing or calling.
Sometimes people get offended and cut off their covenant relationships; however, disconnecting from the people that God has called to impart into our lives can set us back. If we want to grow and partake of the power of God, we must honor those relationships and maintain them.
When we do, we will see things begin to take place in our lives for the better. Evaluate your life and locate the relationships which are divinely-ordained by God.
These are the people God has called you to glean from and to help you grow. When you know who they are, cherish them. Sow into their lives and continue to receive their anointing. When you do, you will find the power that operates in their lives operating in yours. |
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