Category: relationships

Blueprint for a Perfect Relationship

Reposting of my most read post of 2016…

“Relationships are messy”, a catch phrase in our generation.eng_gods_blueprint Must we be resigned to difficult relationships…without hope? Sin makes relationships hard. Sinfulness makes them messy. Following God’s blueprint for relationships can help us endure the hard, reduce the messy, and ultimately bring Him glory. Two critical elements of a perfect relationship are love and honor.

  1. LOVE 

Therefore Jesus answered and was saying to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner. The Father loves the Son and shows Him all things He is doing. John 5:19-20a

The Father is transparent and the Son watchful. Because of the love the Father has for the Son, He shows Him all things that He is doing. The Son in return does only what He sees His Father doing. The works the Son does testifies that the Father sent Him. The Son glorified the Father by accomplishing the work the Father gave Him to do (John 17:4).

…but so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me. John 14:31a

The Son’s love is seen in His exact obedience to His Father’s commands. Not only by doing the works of the Father, but speaking the words the Father taught Him (John 8:28, 12:49, 50). The Son obeyed the Father’s command even to the point of laying down His life (John 10:17-18). Even though Jesus was willing to do exactly as His Father commanded Him, we should not think that what He committed to do was easy. As the writer of Hebrews tells us:

In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety. Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered. Hebrews 5:7-8

Jesus showed love for His Father in His exact obedience even though it came with suffering and death on a cross.

2. HONOR

“For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son, so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. John 5:22-23

The Father honored the Son by giving Him the power of judgment. “The judge of all the earth” (Genesis 18:25), gave up His right to judge, because He wanted the Son to be honored. Jesus understood that He came into the world for judgment for all do not believe His word nor the One who sent Him (John 5:24).

…I honor My Father, and you dishonor Me. John 8:49b

Jesus honored the Father by seeking to do His Father’s will.

I can do nothing on My own initiative. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. John 5:30

For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. John 6:38

Again, just because Jesus was the Son of God, we should not assume that His commitment to do God’s will was easy. After sharing the Passover meal with His disciples, Jesus, along with Peter, James and John went to the garden of Gethsemane. There He became distressed and troubled, telling them “My soul is deeply grieved to the point of death” and asking them to remain there and keep watch. He moved away from them and began to pray…

And He was saying, “Abba! Father! All things are possible for You; remove this cup from Me; yet not what I will, but what You will.” Mark 14:36

As much as Jesus didn’t want to experience death on the cross, He knew that was the purpose for which He came (John 12:27). The end result was the Son honoring the Father and the Father exalting the Son.

Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:8-11

The Father loved the Son by showing and giving Him all things. The Son loved the Father by obeying His commands. The Father in turn brought honor to the Son by giving Him the power of judgment. The Son also honored the Father by doing only the Father’s will not His own. Their relationship resulted with each bringing glory to the other.

 This perfect relationship show that the Son and the Father are one (John 10:30). We may think that a perfect relationship of love and honor that leads to oneness is not possible for us, but that is exactly what Jesus prays for us to have.

I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me. The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me. Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. John 17:20-24

God’s Blueprint for Relationships: Love

This post is the second in the series on God’s Blueprint for Relationships. If you have not you may wan to read the first post:  Blueprint for a Perfect Relationship.

heart-1-300x225Love is the foundation for many…if not most of our relationships. Is love an emotion that changes as often as the weather? Or is love an intentional decision of the will that leads to action? God commands us to love, but how is this love to be seen in our daily lives?

John 15:12 “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this that one lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are My friends if you do what I command you. 15 No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you. 17 This I command you, that you love one another.

Jesus commanded to His disciples to love one another as He had loved them (John 15:12). So the question is how did Christ love His disciples? He loved them by being an example:  doing the work of God (John 4:36, 6: 26-29, 17:13); serving others (John 13:12-17); obeying God’s commands (John 14:31); laying down His life for them (John 10:15, 15).

In fact, Jesus said there is no greater love than to lay down your life for your friends (John 15:13). Paul said Christ loved us by giving Himself up for us as an offering and a sacrifice to God (Ephesians 5:2) that we might receive forgiveness of our sins (Colossians 1:14). Because God loves us, He gave His only Son, so that when we believe in Him we will not perish (lose our lives for eternity) but have eternal life (John 3:16).

Out of love Christ gave up His life that we may have eternal life through Him.

How are we to love as Christ loved? 

1 John 3:16 We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. 17 But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? 18 Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.

John instructs us not to love in word or tongue but to love in deed and truth. To love only in word or tongue is to love with careless or selfish words and fail to show any evidence of real love. To love in deed is to love with action…sharing and giving of ourselves to meet the need of others, whether it is the need for salvation or a meal.  To love in truth is to love with sincerity, speaking truth in love so that our heart does not condemn us before God (1 John 3:19-20).

Love in deed by sharing what we have…love in truth by acting out of a sincere heart.

Why is loving other so important?

John 3:14 We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death. 15 Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

Our loving one another gives evidence of our salvation…that we have come to faith and have eternal life. Our refusal to love shows that we remain spiritually dead and are living according to our natural sinful nature.

Our love or lack of it gives evidence of the spirtual condition of our hearts!