About Relationships

Good morning and what a great day it is! I have been listening to Zoe's, "A New Anointing". It's a season of new anointing, it's a season for fresh outpouring! This is the day that the Lord has made! I will rejoice and be glad in it! Love the song! Thank you, God!

I want to talk about "relationships" for the next several BLOGS. God has a strong desire for relationship between a brother/brother, sister/sister or brother/sister. This way, the church will flourish to unimaginable proportions! Without relationships, I don't see why we should continue on as a "church". Satan's strong desire is to go into the core (heart) of the church, destroy relationships, which will eventually destory His church (people). Let's see what Jesus says about relationships.

When the crowds (Jews) asked Jesus, “What is the greatest commandment?” he answered, “Love the Lord your God with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.” That raised no eyebrows and rocked no boats. The good, ole Jews have quoted this hundreds of thousands of times in their life.

“Excellent man, my Jesus. Excellent answer,” the crowd would have nodded in agreement. That I can do and have done. It shows that we are all a-OK..

But then Jesus added a line. “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Mark 12:31)

Yikes! Things changed. There were commotions among the Jews questioning that raises red flags,
"Which neighbor is He talking about? I hope He's not thinking what I am thinking!"
"You don't expect me to get along with 'that guy' over there?"
"Hey, are you telling me to 'love' this person regardless even if he/she annoys me? I don't think so!"
"I don't have time for this, right now, because he/she is actually wasting "my" time!"
Can you hear these among the Jews now? What about among us, even your own thoughts?

Hold on a minute, now! Let me explain this. The “Love God” is what we all do nowadays.. Sounds religious. Well, it's religion. It's comfortable.

Until......

Jesus added the "neighbor" line and slammed the "Love God" line down! Now Jesus had gone and targeted that teaching. He’d made it practical. He’d aimed it at real people. People who has a desire to "LOVE" their neighbor no matter who they are: intelligent, uneducated, poor, rich, talkative, quiet, loving, mean, and anything you can think of. The aim is: to "bring Jesus" into the hearts of "negative" people and encourage the "positive" people to "show Jesus".

When we say that we are all a-OK, the "loving God" becomes vague.. One writer excellently quoted, "We can put on and take off our religion like we do our Sunday clothes. We can set our faith up on the shelf beside our dusty family Bible and still feel holy. But when Jesus targeted that teaching, well, things got practical and personal."

The way Jesus "showed Jesus", expressed the love of God is, not in the church buildings (pews, pulpit), but in relationships with people - in the way you and I get along with him or her and all. I believe we're missing the important point if being with God on Sunday doesn’t make us better at being with people on Monday. Real "religion" shines in right relationships. Right relationships shows Jesus. If you're only going to worship God on Sundays but have no interests in building relationships/restoring relationships, then you're drifting far from God.

Who is neighbor? Grumpy ones. Mean ones. Talkative ones. Lazy ones. Wives who don’t appreciate what wonderful husbands they have. Husbands who think they are too wonderful. Relating to people with “the Show Jesus” is easier said than done.

Isn’t our mission the same as Jesus’ mission? Touching people? Didn’t John say, “For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen”? (1 John 4:20) See how far away from God you're falling from when you're not loving your brother or sister?

So we come to an important personal question:

How are your relationships?

Think for just a minute about the people in your world. Some are in your life by choice: your mate, your best friend, perhaps a business associate. Others you inherited by chance: your relatives, your next-door neighbor, maybe your boss.

Could you use a little help in doing right by people? I guess we all could.

The plan?

Simple. You need a coach. Let Coach Jesus coach you into right relationships.. He will help you track down "the love Jesus loved people", and we’ll learn the art of relationship from the Eternal!. Only if we mean "love", we’re going to learn from Jesus how to treat people!

So....... How are your relationships?