Monthly Bible Study

Bible Mini-Study October, 2007

Healthy Relationships

“My dear friends, we must love each other. Love comes from God, and when we love each other, it shows that we have been given new life. We are now God's children, and we know him. God is love.” I John 4:8-9 CEV

Loving relationships are a gift from God. They enrich our lives and they show us something of the fullness of love we will know in God’s heavenly kingdom. God reigns in love in His Kingdom. He wants to remove everything that is keeping us from loving Him and the people He brings into our lives. The more we enjoy healthy love, the more we share in the life and kingdom of God.

“ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest command. And the second is like it, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ “ (Matthew 22:39)

Because God is love, He is the best person to help us learn to give and receive love in ever-growing ways. His promise is that the Holy Spirit will pour God’s love into our hearts. (Romans 5:5) God begins this relationship of love. When we return His love with our own, we have taken the most important step toward healthy, loving relationships.

God can then give us wisdom about loving others in healthy ways. Learning how well or poorly our self-esteem was formed will help us to understand why we approach our relationships the way we do. We may still have anger or shame from being treated unfairly as children (in our homes or at school). Perhaps we felt loved only when we performed well. These feelings make it difficult for us to believe that God loves us just as we are. We may fear rejection and try too hard to receive the unconditional love we missed as children. We do not look back to blame anyone, but to understand how we may be seeing others and ourselves in unhealthy ways and acting unnaturally in our relationships.

Some of us learned about power when we were young: competition in schools and one-upmanship in society. We want to have feelings of control or power, so we talk about our accomplishments or possessions, or we try to appear smarter. Relationships are not healthy if they are built on competition.

Others of us try quieter ways to feel in control, for example, we try too hard to please, we take the victim role, or we use silence. We may think it is honorable to suffer in silence. But we are not being responsible to communicate and seek answers that help build the relationship.

If we are people pleasers, we are willing to please another even if we risk losing our self-identity. We become what someone else wants and/or assume responsibilities that belong to him or her. We give up becoming the unique and gifted person God wants us to be. We are to find and maintain a balance between giving ourselves and nurturing ourselves.

Others try to feel in control by criticizing, threatening or being verbally or physically abusive. It is easy to recognize this unhealthy approach to relationships. However, a silent, people pleasing or victim approach is also manipulative. Either way, we are trying to feel secure because we are not secure in God’s love.

If things from our past have left us with negative thoughts about ourselves, we may try too hard to feel secure in our relationships. There is also the danger we could become addicted if we try to cover our pain. We may take too much of something or we may do too much of an activity. When it doesn’t help us, we think that increasing the amount will solve the problem. It may become a compulsive habit and finally addiction.

Unfortunately, we carry our pain into our relationships: resentment, guilt, fear, anger or shame. For some people, the most difficult Biblical guideline is to “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Forgiving ourselves for past mistakes is important. We are freed from ourselves to be compassionate and forgiving of others.

It is in our relationships that we learn to know ourselves and how loving we can become. From time to time God will allow something to happen in one of our relationships to show us we need to learn something more about ourselves. Our deepest wounds can give us our greatest wisdom and our greatest gifts. Initially, the truth can hurt, but the Lord will use it to set us free—freed from self to love others.

We will need to pray in an ongoing way for wisdom and humility. The Lord will help us to appreciate the goodness and uniqueness of another. We also need to pray for our friends – for their blessing and for the health of our relationship.

We are not left alone to grow in our ability to love. If we invite Him, Jesus is with us in all our relationships.

“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” Colossians 3:12-14

A Thought to Ponder

The healthiest thing we take into our relationships is the love and forgiveness we have received from God.

Suggestions for Prayer-Listening

Lord Jesus, do I have a relationship where I need to mature in expressing my love?

How do you want my love to mature?

Suggestions for Meditation

To be equipped for love, God wants us secure in His love (Ephesians 3:16-19). Meditate on the following declarations of God’s love:

“Day by day the Lord pours out his steadfast love upon me.” Psalm 42:8a LB

“ . . . you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you.” Isaiah 43:4a RSV

Sit quietly. Breathe in God’s love. Breathe out any unhealthy thoughts about yourself.

Encouragement for Leaders

Until I was 33 years old, I did not know about God’s unconditional love. As I look back on my earlier years, whether it was true or not, I felt that I earned approval only when I behaved well. I know now that my parents loved me and used the parenting skills they had learned. But I grew up confusing love with approval. I became hungry for ‘doing’ and succeeding and not just for ‘being’. I settled for approval instead of love. And, for many years, I saw criticism as threatening, for my relationships were based on performance and criticism placed them in jeopardy. I thank God for how He is healing me with His love and wisdom. More and more, I am enjoying deeply loving relationships. This is so important for ministry. We want to take to our relationships the healing love and forgiveness we have received from God.