The Secret to Healthy Relationships - Elaine Gan

Our lives are all about relationships. At the very core of our life is our relationship with God, and as our community circle widens, so do our relationships with the people around us – family, friends, and anyone we come into contact with, regularly. Maintaining healthy connections, however, takes work, and is what transforms a casual relationship to a meaningful one. The Word of God is full of tricks of the trade to teach us how to do this. Jesus, Himself, shares about having healthy relationships. Take a look at this verse.

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ Matthew 22:37-39 (NKJV)

The secret to healthy relationships: Loving Jesus, and loving like Jesus

What does loving Jesus have to do with all the other relationships we have in our lives? It is inevitable that we will encounter people whom we find difficult to love. It is as though some people give you every reason not to love them. Sometimes, these relationships can be feel stacked against us with disappointments, judgments and hurt.

This is where we need to step back and try to look at them the way that Jesus does; try to see them the way God made them, and not through the lens of what they have done to us. One really effective, practical, strategy I’ve used in these situations is to speak into who the person could be, that is, the person God made them to be, instead of dwelling on their actions that are hurtful or disappointing.

What does loving Jesus and loving like Jesus look like?

We often associate love with romance or a feeling, but loving Jesus and loving like Jesus is, at its core, obedience to God. In John 14:15 (AMP), it says that, “if you really love Me, you will keep and obey My commandments”. From this perspective, love is no longer just something we do as, and when, we feel like we can, but ultimately it is a priority in our lives – an ever-present awareness of God’s eternal commandment to love. We must train ourselves to focus less on what we feel, and more on what God desires for our lives, then we will be able to change the way we relate to, forgive, and love people around us.

My own encounter with learning how to love like Jesus, happened when my husband, Andy, and I were at a friend’s house for dinner. My friend had cooked us a lovely meal, and as we were eating, Andy complimented my friend’s cooking, saying it was the best meal he had ever tasted. In that moment, I felt as though the cooking I had done all throughout my married life had gone to waste (talk about having a victim-mindset). I was fuming.

Immediately, I felt the Holy Spirit convict me – I needed to speak the truth, in love, and not blame him for making an innocent comment about great food. This was a lesson in resisting offense by taking what people say, objectively, before taking things personally. And in learning this, truly I was being taught how to love like Jesus. Even in our shortcomings, the Holy Spirit can give us wisdom and relational intelligence to navigate different situations with healthy principles and secrets from the Word of God. See what God says in Ephesians 5:1-2 and pocket it in your heart:

‘What God does, then you do it, like children who learn proper behaviour from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.’

Elaine is married to Andy Gan and is the mother of Kimberly and Gerard , she is on the Kingdomcity team.

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