Relationships
"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and will all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."
– Mark 12:30-31
The longer I live, the more convinced I become that the key to a meaningful and fruitful life is healthy, authentic relationship—first with God, and then with others. Even though God is first in the order, we can only love God fully if we love others well, so they go hand and hand. Relationships are both the most fulfilling and the most challenging aspects of life. The greatest joys we experience are shared with in relationship with others, and the deepest pains we face are often relational as well. This tension isn’t accidental—it’s by design. Since human souls are eternal, people matter most to God.
In follow on to the past two “Word of the Weeks” on “Everything New” and “First Fruits”, I believe the next most important thing we can do as we begin 2026 is focus on our relationships. The Lord gives us clarity in His divine order for our lives when it comes to relationships. Jesus made it unmistakably clear: loving God comes first, and loving others as we love ourselves flows from there. When we honor God’s order, life works the way it was intended to work and our relationship with God, others (our Neighbor) and ourselves are healthy and flourish over time. Based on my experience in my walk of faith over the past 25 years, I am convinced that with divine order comes divine blessings!
The following outlines God’s divine order in relationships:
Loving God First Is the Foundation of Divine Order: Our most important relationship in life is our personal relationship with Jesus. Everything else flows from this connection. When we love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, we are placing Him in His rightful position—not out of obligation, but out of relationship. He commands to be the priority of our lives and will not settle for anything less. We must make Him “Lord” over all things. God desires to know us and be known by us.“So that in everything He might have the supremacy.” (Colossians 1:18)
Loving Others by the Golden Rule: Jesus didn’t just teach love—He modeled it. He gave us a simple but powerful framework for how to live out love in everyday relationships: “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you.” (Matthew 7:12) Loving others well means treating people with the same grace, patience, honesty, and respect we desire for ourselves. By abiding in Christ daily and knowing who we are in Him, we gain the power and divine capacity to love others in this way. When God is first, we are free to love others without expectation or control. The Golden Rule becomes not just a principle we believe, but a way of life we live.
Loving Ourselves Is Essential to Relational Health: Healthy relationships with others begin with a healthy, God-centered understanding of ourselves. Our identity in Christ is so important to understand. Scripture is clear that loving others well requires first knowing and stewarding our own hearts.“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”(Proverbs 4:23) Most believers miss this part, but Jesus commanded us to love ourselves when He said we are to“love your neighbor as yourself”—implying that a proper love for self is not selfish, but foundational. When we fail to receive God’s love for us, we often seek it from others in unhealthy ways, placing expectations on people that only God can fulfill. God calls us to see ourselves as He sees us—created in His image, redeemed by Christ, and deeply loved. When our identity is secure in Him, we are better able to love others freely, without fear, comparison, or control. This includes caring for our emotional, spiritual, and physical well-being as an act of stewardship, not indulgence.
Relationship with God, others, and ourselves is key to a healthy and fulfilled “abundant” life. Divine order is not about doing it all perfect—it’s about gaining clarity of priorities when it comes to our relationships. When we love God first, and with all of our heart, we gain the capacity to love others with agape love and love ourselves as we gain clarity on who we really are in Christ. In doing so our relationships begin to flourish. Life may still have challenges, but it becomes ordered, grounded, and rich in what truly matters. When God is in His proper place, we gain the capacity to love others well and experience the fullness of life He intended. Check out Pastor Mark’s powerful message Golden Relationship Rule
Challenge Question: In my relationships today, am I loving God with all of my heart, soul and strength by making Him my highest priority relationship—and loving others well by intentionally living out the Golden Rule by treating others the way I would want to be treated?
Prayer: Lord, thank You for creating us for relationship—with You and with others. Help us prioritize you in every area of our lives so we can receive your agape love and blessing and have the capacity and power to love others the way You love us. Where relationships are strained, bring healing; where they are shallow, deepen them; and where our love has fallen short, give us grace to grow. Align our lives with Your divine order so we may reflect Your love to the world. Amen.
