Godly Relationship

Children of God, Good morning. Today God’s message to us is on Godly Relationship. Our text is taken from 1 Peter 1: 22-23:

Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently: 23 Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. KJV .

Prayer: Dear LORD, thank you for your word we are about to share. Grant us circumcised ears and use your word to transform our heart to Godly relationship. Amen.

Brethren, the portion from where our text is taken from lay emphasis on loving from a pure heart with warmth. Love that is from hypocritical heart is not from God. Godly love is always initiated from a humble heart. Pure love is shown in humility without hypocrisy.

The importance of humility is relationship cannot be overemphasized. Humility in relationship is one of the keys to success, but often mistakenly focuses on traits like confidence. It has much greater impact than this. High level of confidence may be termed arrogance and pride. CS Lewis said that “humility is not about thinking less of yourself but thinking of yourself less”. Hence in 1 John 4: 18, it is stated that “perfect love casted out fear”; and verse 12 says that “if we love one another, God dwells in us, and his love is perfected in us’.

Godly relationship is not built on self-righteousness. It is not hypocritical. Paul in Acts 26: 4-5, reminded us that he has practiced ‘pharisism’ from his youth, the type of relationship where the other partner screams at a mote in his partner’s eye, while there is a log in his own eyes. They also strain at a gnat and swallow a Carmel. It is this supper-righteousness that cause the Pharisees to add their tradition to God’s law, hence they suffered from narcissism – a disorder of excessive self-admiration and self-centeredness; which Solomon in Ecclesiastes 7: 15-18 admonished us to refrain from over-righteousness, and Christ put the nail on the head in Matthew 23:1-7, when describing the attitude of the Scribes and the Pharisees.

This attitude alienated the Pharisees from God; hence they refused to receive the free salvation and still expecting their messiah. To them, Jesus become a rock of offence (Romans 9: 31-35); which Isaiah earlier revealed what God was going to do with such people through Christ described as “a foundation stone”, (Isaiah 28: 16-18). The proud cannot relate with man, and definitely not with God (Ephesians 4: 17).

What are the Negative Effects of Pride in Relationship?

Pride lead to:

• Self-centeredness, rejection, isolation and loneliness;
• Forfeiture of God’s blessings – James 4: 6;
• Inability to move forward and improve our relationship;
• Frequent misunderstanding – Ephesians 4: 26; Psalm 4: 4

What can We Do to Change?

• Move from pride to humility – from glory to glory – 2 Corinthians 3: 18;
• Love must be honest and true – Romans 12: 9-18; 14: 1, 7, 13; 15: 1-4; Psalm 69: 9;
• Walk humbly with God – Micah 6: 8;
• Renew your life – 2 Corinthians 4: 16-18; 5: 17; Joel 2: 12-13; Psalm 73: 26.

When Developing Godly Relationship with One Another:-

• Realize that relationship is two-fold (it takes two to tango).
• Do to others as you want from them – love, care, help, etc., if you want same.
• Work on God centered relationship above all others – Colossians 3: 18-25.

Have God centered relationship with:-

• God,
• Spouses,
• Parent and children,
• Siblings,
• Church members, Pastors, Your Neighbors, Your employer/employee, others
• Nurture and feed your God centered relationship – share your life and possessions; care for others; note that we all have something we can bring into our relationship

In Conclusion – Why Humility in Relationship?

It makes us open to improvement.

It enables us to say sorry – Luke 15: 11-32.

It helps us to accept advice.

It enables us to acknowledge our weaknesses and inadequacies.

It helps us to put other’s needs before ours.

It enables us to forgive easily.

Prayer

LORD thank you for your word into our souls. We are not worthy of your love. Please turn our attitude to gratitude. LORD, teach us to be humble. Take over the throne of our heart as we are stepping down. Help us to see everyone with your eye and not ours and enable us to