relate

We all have emotional and spiritual rights, needs, and responsibilities.  They were given to mankind by the Creator and meant to be fulfilled and prioritized by Him alone, as a daily choice was made to walk with Him.  However, due to deception and pride, our perspective was shifted, and our approach to having these needs met became self-centered, which has led to a blindness to our own responsibility.  To move beyond our fleshly tendencies, we must filter these through the lens of Christ so that we are able to have a Godly understanding of these needs and of our role in having these fulfilled. Properly relating to other people takes the power of God.  He is the one who has to re-shape our view of others and of ourselves by allowing us to understand who we are without Christ and who we are in Christ. 

We are each looking for acceptance and significance, but we cannot seek fulfillment in other people who are all just as broken as we are.  God can only satisfy those needs because He is the only one who fully understands the depth of our needs and the perfect solution.  Relating to other people is only made possible by a right relationship with God.  We must be committed to God in prayer so that we are able to maintain full submission of our rights and goals to Him, which allows God to exercise His full power in us and through us.  Our life is really His life lived through us. 

If we are going to be an accurate reflection of Christ’s love and life lived out through us, we cannot attack another person’s character.  Either as a result of projective, self-judgment or a tendency to dismiss our sins based on our reasoned intent, we are prone to see others’ sins and quick to criticize character, but the goal of addressing needs and concerns is to bring about restoration.  If we instead focus on the other person’s failures and our rights, the problem will remain unsolved and will leave the other person spiritually and emotionally bitter and deflated with no way to rise.  But, as Christians, we were not commissioned to judge and decipher the hearts of others; instead, we are called to allow God to test our own hearts to reveal any blatant or hidden impurity within us.  Upon dealing with our own results of this spiritual testing, we are able to realize the rotten core of our man-made morality.  Then, by submitting to the solution-based discipline of God as His children, we are able to experience God’s love and His desire for us to grow from our fumbles, rather than decay in perceived failure and false character labels.  From this, we can better comprehend that every blessing is a grace-filled, merciful gift from Christ despite our sin.  We are able to use this understanding to willingly apologize without defense when we are wrong and to walk alongside others in support as we each renew our minds, address concerns in love, and rely on Christ’s strength to break the stronghold of sin.

Christ lived a perfect life.  He is the standard of perfection and has every right to sternly hold us to this level of perfection, but He shows us mercy and grace despite our sinful tendencies and His perfect rights.  Love covers a multitude of sins, and God is love; therefore, our sins are covered under the grace of God because He is the very definition of love.  The revelation of Christ’s acceptance and affirmation of who we are in Him sparks a spiritual enthusiasm that propels us down a path of joyful service and submission, relinquished rights, responsible evaluation of our role, and full trust in God’s power to meet our needs.  Our emotional and spiritual satisfaction can only come from a true spiritual relationship with God, who wraps us in His grace and love.