Voluntary Relationship
Scripture Reading: Romans 12:18–21
“If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men,” Romans 12:18.
Voluntary Relationship
How do compulsory and voluntary relationships impact our lives? I pray that God will increase our sensitivity to the values, actions, and attitudes we have in relationships. Have you discovered that compulsory relationships, those you have to maintain because otherwise situations would become awkward or abnormal, tend to grieve your spirit? Conversely, have you experienced joy, strength, happiness, and edification from your voluntary relationships? This is so because your spirit man is not under the same pressures as the flesh and the soul. Your spirit man is only sensitive to the things of God, the things that God has sent you here to do. Your spirit man is not easily diverted.
Today, I pray that God will give you the grace to sort out your relationships. Ask yourself what you are doing because you have to, and what you are doing because you love to? Even in our relationship with God, there are things we feel we have to do and things we do out of love. God loves a cheerful giver. He does not bless, nor is He impressed with one who gives grudgingly. If someone invites you to dinner and grumbles while serving you, you would prefer they keep their food. But if they cheerfully serve you with what they have, you will so delight in being at their table and enjoy the fellowship.
Sometimes we get caught up in sibling rivalry like Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, Leah and Rachael, and others. What should we do about these challenges? Search your values and pray for the grace to relate to others in a voluntary spirit-filled way. Pray that God will give you the grace to maintain a pure heart as you relate to others. If you take this attitude of owing no man anything but agape love, unconditional love, you will be blessed. If you take your family relationships from phileo, brotherly love, and your romantic relationships from eros, romantic love, to agape love where there are no conditions, expectations, disappointments, and one hundred percent appreciation, you will have wonderful relationships.
When nobody owes you anything, you are giving because it is in your nature, because you are a child of God, a child of love, because God’s nature is love and God says owe no man anything but love. Loving by force is difficult and mechanical, while voluntary relationships are spiritual. The thoughtful things you do when you do not have to do them bring great joy and give great joy to the receiver.
When you become born again, you make friends in the Kingdom and you communicate. You address each other as sister and brother, you are filled with the Spirit of God, and you talk about the Bible. You share genuinely and could go on for hours.
Father God, deliver us from the things that divert. Give us the grace to set our values and remember that everything is as important as we make it. May God convert us from relating in a compulsory manner to relating voluntarily. When you buy Christmas gifts for your friends and relatives, do not do it because you have to. Do things voluntarily, cheerfully. Give that way so they will enjoy it and you will enjoy it.
I pray that God will deliver us from situations where we have allowed ourselves to be bound. If your brother does not communicate with you, decide to communicate with him without remembering that he does not communicate with you. This is agape, unconditional, voluntary love. If your sister does not treat you the way you want to be treated, treat her the way you want to be treated. “Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law,” Romans 13:10.
We are to live peaceably with all men. “…avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good,” Romans 12:19–21. May God give us the grace to live this way in the name of Jesus.
Prayer Points:
If you have never given your life to Jesus, this probably sounds foreign to you. But if you give your life to Jesus and accept Him as your personal Lord and Saviour, you will have a new understanding. Pray with me now, “Dear Lord Jesus, I surrender my life to you. Write my name in the book of life and grant me relationships that are voluntary, and may I do things purely out love because I love to.”
Father, set our values and priorities right. Help us to remember that everything is as important as we make it. May God give us the grace to live in love in Jesus’ name.
