We all have baggage in life, and often this is relational. Peter writes in his first epistle that we should cast our cares/anxieties upon the Lord. Often relational issues can be caused by overcomplicating everything. Pastor Jonny spoke to us this week about how we should aim to keep our relationships simple, reflecting the perfect relationship found in the Trinity between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, living in community loving one another, without any drama.
4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
(1 Corinthians 13:4-7)
Relationships in our life are important. They provide us with a foundation and a support network, and the people we have relationships with (friends, family, neighbours, bosses, colleagues) are our biggest influencers.
Jonny has 3 simple steps to succeed in positive relationships in life:
Honour Your Parents
Our relationship with our parents is the very first relationship we have. Much of who we are comes from “nature”, that is, inheriting traits from our parents. The other part of who we are comes from “nurture”, how our parents raised us.
Families are God’s idea: a mother, father and children. The responsibility is with the parents to make sure that a family operates well. God’s design for families is that children grow up in community with their parents, the people who love them the most and want them to succeed the most. Parents model relationships to their children, and lead by example on how children should treat their neighbours.
God tells us in the Ten Commandments that we should honour our parents:
12“Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.
(Exodus 20:12)
Honouring our parents brings blessings in life, however, this comes with a caveat: it’s good to honour our parents, but only in-line with God’s commandments. If our parents are trying to encourage us in ungodliness, then it’s acceptable to push back.
If you don’t have good parents, remember that you have a Heavenly Father who loves you and you can honour Him!
Love Your Spouse
Whether married, dating or single, we should seek to honour our spouse.
When two people get married, they become one flesh. When married, loving one’s spouse is really important.
During the dating phase, we should ask ourselves whether this person is whom we want to become one flesh with, someone we want to bring new life into the world with, and someone we want to build a life with.
If we’re single, we should be thinking about the sort of person we want to be married to, keeping ourselves pure for our future spouse, ensuring a clean conscience on the wedding day, knowing we’ve loved our spouse before we even knew them.
Society tells us that marriage is just a social contract these days. It’s actually a big deal! After our relationship with the Lord, our marriage is the most important relationship in our lives, our first calling.
We should aim to not be unequally yoked, meaning we should only date and marry Christians. A common moral and spiritual compass makes the big life decisions so much easier, and means that children can be raised with a consistent worldview, shared by both parents. Also, it’s a command from God, so we should seek to obey Him.
We should also ensure that we don’t let our relationship with our spouse become an idol; if we prioritise it over God, we leave no room for the Holy Spirit to sanctify us and make us more like Jesus - we need to keep a focus on our relationship with the Lord.
Teach Your Children
The family as God designed it is a support network with a strong female and a strong male. For parents, children are the greatest gift and the greatest responsibility, the greatest source of joy and the greatest source of anxiety.
6Start children off on the way they should go,
and even when they are old they will not turn from it.
(Proverbs 22:6)
We should seek to raise our children in the faith. They need us to be their guide on how to follow Jesus. We should be praying for their future friends and spouses too.
There’s an old saying, “more is caught than taught” - we should be leading by example! Our children need to see us praying and reading our Bibles. We need to discuss the big deep topics of life and involve our children in those discussions. We need to build them up with encouragement and discipline them, building them into well-rounded adults.
In summary, the key to our relationships is time. We need to spend quality time honour our parents, loving our spouses and teaching our children.
This week, be praying for better relationships, and if you’d like any prayer or assistance with broken relationships, please get in touch.