Matt 22:25-27; Eccl 4:9-12
Life is about relationships; all of life can be summarized into relationships
1.Love God with all of your heart, soul and mind
2.Love your neighbor as yourself
Ultimately, all of life and pleasing God is about doing these two things.
Life is about your relationship with God and men.
The beautiful thing about that arrangement is that if you will get your relationship with God right, you will be able to get the relationship with men right. It’s very difficult if not downright impossible to love men, when you cannot get it right with God. When the love of God is shared abroad in your heart, that is when you are able to love people as really should love them. 1John 4:28
The love of man can only definitely be influenced by your love for God; there is no way you really can love people without first loving God.
What are the things that actually work for every kind of relationship? because if you will therefore also be a master in life you must have a good relationship with men.
Somebody once said if you want to go fast go alone but if you want to go far, it means that if you must get it right and make it in life, you must maximize your relationship with human beings.
I always tell people that it is easy to hire people but their relationship skills matters a great deal.
Your ability to maximize your relationships determines how successful you are going to be in life
2Kngs 5 –Neman’s leprosy could not be fixed by his money, influence, status but he got his problem fixed by his relationship. He had a slave who works with his wife who then one day said to the wife “If my master was in Israel he would have been cured of this leprosy” If Neman was not that nice the slave would have kept quiet.
Your success is based on how you can bring out the best in the people around you and sometimes the best way to tell that is when you can bring out the best in people that are your subordinates, people that can’t do you any good in that sense, people that you are above but if you can be good to them and they are happy working with you, then you’ve gotten something right.
Golden Rules
1.Be gracious in your speech – if you will maximize your relationships then you must learn how to speak graciously Prov 22:11 “He who loves purity of heart and has Grace in his lips, the king will be his friend” I have someone who says to me confidently, I don’t know how to talk. It’s not a virtue. If you don’t know how to talk you will be in trouble, you will not maximize your relationships, and many things will go wrong. If you must build friendship then you must learn how to speak even the most powerful people on earth will love to be close to you because you know how to talk.
2.Don’t Repeat Issues – When you repeat issues, the bible says it will separate very friends Prov 17:9.
3.Resist the Urge to Always vent your feelings– the way we like to say it is ‘I will give him/her a piece of my mind’ Prov 29:11. You need to learn how to hold back certain things. There are things that are not worth saying because they are not going to mend anything, improve or get a sorry from the person. James 1:20‘The anger of man does not work in the righteousness of God”
Take the initiative and treat people the way you want to be treated.