LIfe is All About Relationships

I have been learning recently that life is all about relationships. That’s the purpose of life, the task of life, and the point on which judgment will be based.

First, life is about my relationship with Christ.

When I say this, I don’t mean that I need to simply believe in Jesus Christ, though it is important. The Bible reports that the demons believe in Jesus Christ (James 2:19). Does that mean that they are saved? No.   

That means that they have a correct understanding of Christ, of His work, and of their state before Him. But they fail to have a relationship with Him. It’s the difference between knowing all about the president, and actually knowing the president personally.

Knowing Christ is so much more than knowing the nature of His work, His preferences, and the details of His character. Anyone can look through my blog or Facebook page to discover that I’m an author (my work), that my favorite color is purple (my preferences), and that I am compassionate (my character). That doesn’t mean someone knows me. It just means he knows about me.

But if someone can recognize my voice, anticipate my responses to various situations, and give evidence of experiences that we have shared together, then he likely knows me, personally.

In Matthew chapter 25, the basis of Jesus’ rejection of the “goats” is simply this: “I never knew you.” Even when they had a laundry list of all the good and wonderful things they had done in His name, they had failed in the one crucial aspect: the relationship.

Life, they learn, is all about the relationship.

Secondly, life is about my relationship with others.

Many pastors and theologians rightly place the bulk of emphasis on a relationship with Christ. However, I feel that many Christians today overlook the evidence of that relationship: namely, our relationships with others. While the Bible lists many evidences of true faith (joy, for example), the key evidence is this: love for others.

1 John 4:20
If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?

Matthew chapter 25 shows people who behave like Christ, lovingly clothing the naked, comforting the sick, visiting the oppressed. They don’t consider their work worthy of recognition (Luke 17:10); they simply do it out of God-born love. And His response is this: 

Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

The judgment—or justification—of the sheep and the goats is based first on their relationship with Him, and then on their relationship with others. From what I can tell, Scripture is consistent on these two points.

LIving for relationships

Matthew 22:37-40
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

So, in the end, it won’t matter if I made it through college, got married, fulfilled my dreams, had a successful career, and had nice people say nice things about me. It will matter how personally I knew Christ, and how well I demonstrated Christ-like servanthood to those around me. The worth of my life? It’s all in the relationships.

Lord, teach me to see my relationship with you as an all-consuming passion, the desire of a woman to know her husband more intimately than ever before. Teach me also to see my relationships with others as an extension and evidence of my relationship with You, to serve as You would serve, to love as You would love, and to speak as You would speak. Give me the privilege of becoming like Christ: a beloved child in whom You are well pleased, and an image of Your love to a dying world.

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“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously - no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.” – C. S. Lewis