THANKS SO MUCH FOR CHOOSING TO READ TODAY'S ARTICLE..PLEASE WATCH THE VIDEO FIRST BEFORE READING THE ARTICLE.. IT IS AN AMAZING SONG BY WORLD RENOWNED RECORDING ARTIST JOHN LEGEND
Things between you and your loved one began perfectly. You saw them, and they saw you and it was...WOW! You approached them, and their swagger was right. They knew all of the right things to say and you knew that your unison was divinely inspired. Then you began to date, and at first there was nothing but smiles, hugs, kisses, love notes, seamless cenarios, and an un-tamable attraction to one another BUT..... Somewhere along this cruise in that 2 door convertible Benz called L.O.V.E. you came upon the stifling realization that you were driving 100 miles an hour into a dead end. What happened? How did we not see the warning signs earlier on the road?
What were we doing while driving, where we could not foresee this outcome?? So many of us run into this issue in our relationships. Everything seems to be going perfectly until we realize that something really devastating has happened. You're asking yourself, why is that? WHY DOES THAT HAPPEN, AND WHY DOES THAT HAPPEN IN MY LIFE ALL THE TIME?? Let's examine an amazing parable that my best friend wrote in the book of Matthew 7:24-27(CLICK ON THE SCRIPTURE REFERENCE FOR LINK TO ONLINE BIBLE)
The Wise and Foolish Builders
24"Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.
25The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.
26But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand.
27The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash."
So..What do you think?? Self-explanatory isn't it? It seems self- explanatory, but the truth is that many of us who just read the aforementioned segment of scripture will "understand" what was said but not put it into practice. This scripture is the reason that relationships fail. RELATIONSHIPS FAIL BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT BUILT ON A SOLID FOUNDATION. You're squinting and shaking your head at me.. LOL!
Every good initiative must begin with a plan. An agreement to abide by a certain set of governing rules or guidelines. If I'm gonna start a business, I 'll need to start the business with a mandate, a vision; a plan. Relationships work in the same way. Relationships need to be built upon values that are stronger and more powerful than our "bad behavior", mood swings, anger and frustration, and even our passion for our partner. You ask why?? Well..
When you have a foundation that is solid, righteous and designed to sustain the weight of trials, tribulations, and tough times, you don't need to rely on your emotions (which will definitely let you and your loved one down, and probably destroy your relationship) to guide you through issues. WHAT WE DO IS BASE OUR RELATIONSHIPS ON THINGS LIKE: PHYSICAL APPEARANCE, WEALTH, SEXUAL CHEMISTRY, FAME etc. This is our society's epic issue in relation to relationships. We are pathetic and totally vain, and this garbage way of thinking has lead us into this divorce- filled, partner- hopping conundrum that we have "ever so graciously" found ourselves clawing through.
I know some of the Christians reading this article are patting themselves on the back thinking.."Those non- believers need to do what we the church have done, so that divorce rates would resemble those that are found among us church- goers." My response to Phil the Pharisee is,
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHA! (A really messed- up sinister hahah too)
THE HONEST TRUTH IS THAT THE CHURCH IS THE WORST EXAMPLE FOR MARRIAGE ON THE PLANET!!!! The divorce rates among Christians is astounding, and as a believer I am TOTALLY EMBARASSED. It's so hard to demonstrate to people that the God we serve is still alive when WE ("Christians") don't live victorious lives. Let me say this to you...The reason why the church is failing in the area of marriage like the rest of the world is that we are building our relationships on sand, just like everyone else!!!!
Relationships will last if they are built upon the word of God. We need to love each other with a love that is selfless and totally focused upon pleasing the other person. The other person's love needs to be focused on pleasing us. Respect, forgiveness, understanding and patience are some of the tools that the word of God teaches us, and we need do live them out. Lets look at some scripture (FOUNDATION- BUILDING GUIDELINES) that will help us to organize our relationships.
4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
The scripture set written above is soooooo deep. It seems so practical, and easy but it's not. Living out these principles takes a lot of work, and by work I mean mistakes, and by mistakes I mean arguments and tough times. We learn through our mistakes, but to spare ourselves any further anguish, we need to take Paul's advice and do what he says. How?? How do I do that you ask?
We need to pray and ask God to help us build this foundation. We need to ask Him to show us when and where we've gone wrong, and when He does we need to apologize to our partner and move on. We need to ask God to support us as we REALLLY TRY HARD to live out his commands and better our lives through His wise instructions. It is God's will to see people stay together. Jesus says in Mark 10:9,
9Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate."
That reminds me.. Pray and ask God (Providing that it is HIS WILL) to keep you and your loved one together, and He will continue to whisper 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 in your heart, spirit, and soul.
Be Blessed and remember that "WE'RE JUST ORDINARY PEOPLE.. WE DON'T KNOW WHICH WAY TO GO.."
Nice article... Legend's video adds a cool intro!
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ReplyDeleteYou are correct to say, "Every initiative begins with a plan." The blueprint for anything that is to be built -and subsequently stand- must account for every piece of material that will be used to construct the "project" - in this case – relationship, everything from attitude to sacrifice. If one part of the building starts to breakdown, how can the other beams/posts (etc.) support while still maintaining their role? Something to be indicated on the blueprint. Blueprints also indicate the amount of space to allocate to a particular area...the same way we allocate parts of our heart to certain things, habits, people, and even God.
ReplyDelete...perhaps we are ordinary people. But maybe we've complicated the design.
Stay saved!
TS
Oddly enough, we are still destined to fail in our love lives.
ReplyDeleteThere has never been a perfect example of a loving relationship between two people. We all mess up, we all fail, we all let each other down. Your example from First Corinthians does describe true love, but who can lay claim to being that good... that perfect?
Only God!!!
I think that the above mentioned passage has not been given to us as a model that we HAVE to fulfill but an example of how perfect God is and how short we fall of his flawlessness.
I believe the 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8 was given us to give us focus. We are often blinded and distracted by many of the things that have been mentioned (looks, money, fame, etc.) and through this passage God wants us to turn our attention and our efforts to love.
Not just mooshy romantic love, but love for God and love for our fellow men. The action of loving all is what God wants us to strive for.
And I like how the passage stabs at those who would would build themselves up through being religious.
"Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away"
Tongues, prophecies and knowledge are destined for the garbage dump but love is a renewable resource!
Amen Fat MAn!! I really like the comment. Insightful and honest. You are right..this passage does illuminate the perfect love of God. It allows us to see how often we deviate from God's truth, and his matchless love. The one comment that I have regarding your response though is your last sentence. Every good and perfect gift comes from God, and prophesy is not for the garbage dump because the word says that prophecy is regarded as the highest gift of the spirit because it has the ability to encourage. Tongues are not garbage either (in my opinion)..they become garbage when the spirit of God has not sanctioned them. We need to understand something. There are limits to what the word says to us.. but those limits are reserved only for things that are not truth. God is soooo vast. Not even the heavens can contain Him (That means that heaven is inside of Him). So also is his word vast. Some interpretations of certain things may "lack revelation(yours or mine)", but even in their "deficiency" if it lines up with the truth, it is God because he is vast. He represents all truths.
ReplyDeleteBe blessed my dude!
"T"
In response to the comment from the 18th....
ReplyDeleteLet me start by saying...The Power of Your WORD and IDEAS you GREATLY Underestimate!!!
You said "we are all destined to FAIL in our
love lives"....hmmmmm makes me think what's the point in having a love life? Did GOD give Eve to Adam in order so that they would FAIL? I think it was in order so that they would LOVE! If we focus on the "negative" what will we get other than "negative"? I think a better term is that we are all destined to "LOVE"(feel free to fill this in with anything positive, maybe live, laugh, etc...) in our love lives!!!
JESUS IS LOVE or JESUS EQUALS LOVE or JESUS IS THE SAME AS LOVE
God gave us Jesus as the perfect example of what love looks like. We are His Bride and He is the Bridegroom. He loves us with an unconditional love when we mess up, and if we truely love Him back, we GROW from the mess ups so that it pushes us back into deeper love!...Let's translate that to our love life....When we mess up we learn how to love better and more abundatantly which will then push us into deeper love with our spouse! This is the beauty of love, this is also how we cannot possibly fathom the Love of Christ!!! It's not within our mind frame! So, let's look at what is and that's love with slip ups and times of struggle, which if it is love, should take us deeper into love! For humans that is love we can comprehend and learn from, why? because that's what God gave us to work with. With this process it draws us deeper to "Christlikeness". If we were to love as Christ loves us, we would be Christ, and that's not happenin'!
Last comment here goes with the last thing you said: Love never fails....Jesus never fails!!!!! This is what the Bible is saying!!! In the end, when its "Omega" time, Jesus or Love never fails, until then we have tongues, prophecies and knowledge!!! Why? Because this is what we know as a "way" to love, build, and edify. So, No it's not destintend for the "garbage dump" or else it wouldn't be around to help the human knowledge of Love. It will cease when we see "Love face to face" or you could say, we see "Jesus face to face"
Amen Anonymous Well.. said, and I fully agree!!
ReplyDeleteAnother thing that I wanted to comment upon in reference to Fat MAn.. is your comment of nobody ever being able to achieve what the word describes in Corinthians. Implying that man cannot reach the level or expectation trhat God expects from us would rob God of His integrity. God would not put anything before us that we could not "achieve" through him. If you can uphold kingdom values some of the time, you can uphold it all of the time, its just that we waver in our behaviour. In James 1 he refers to people of little faith as those who are blown in the wind like waves. He is speaking about all of us. We are all like that... but I do believe in the perfect power of Jesus Christ, and that his word is not an unreachable standard. I do believe that (although few) some people come to a place in their walk where the statutes of the kingdom are being upheld in their lives to a degree that you or I would not even believe them. These are people who learn to walk constantly with Holy Spirit. If Jesus can do something.. I can do it. That is why He came.. to reconcile man and God (By paying for our sins on the cross with love), and setting up kingdom legislation here on earth. I love your comment and agree with you though...
The word says in the book of Isaiah lets reason together. I love the fact that we can come on here and reason. God bless you abundantly brother!
"T"