Week 2 – A heart for quality relationships
Champions never become champions on their own. We are wired for love and need to be deeply connected and committed. Jesus tells us in Matthew 22 that we are to love God with our heart, mind, soul and strength – this is first and foremost. Second, we are to love others as ourselves. He further explains the importance of having people that we are connected to in our lives. He tells us in Ecclesiastes that we should pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up. This is why we need to be and be with V.I.P.’s. Most commonly, this stands for Very Important People . Important can also mean quality, as in we should be quality friends to others, and have quality friends and relationships ourselves.
V : God uses people who validate you. To validate you is to affirm you, to support you. 1 Peter 4:10 tells us that God has given each of us some special abilities and that we should be sure to use them to help each other. A person who validates you recognizes your unique contribution and desires to bring out the best in you. And if you’re not getting validation from productive and constructive methods, like quality relationships, you may resort to destructive methods. Destructive ways of finding affirmation include seeking your self worth from the acceptance of others or to resort to acting in a way that they want you to. You may compromise your personal beliefs, morals or boundaries because you think that if you do this, you will be accepted or affirmed. Many times this is in the form of caving into friends pressuring you to do something you don’t agree with or that you don’t want to do.
I : God uses people who improve you. Proverbs says “As iron sharpens iron, a friend sharpens a friend.” In other words, a friend can challenge you, help keep you on track and encourage you to be better. A friend who is pursuing Christ will help you improve your pursuit of Christ. Just like you play against someone better than you in sports to learn to play better, you will improve yourself if you surround yourself with relationships with people who are also improving themselves. This isn’t improvement of your appearance or popularity, but improvement of yourself to be a better you – and for Christians this is to try to be like Christ. A person who improves you makes you better simply because you are connected to them. You want to be like them because they have admirable characteristics, just like with Jesus, we want to be like Him because of His kindness to others, His purity and His grace.
P : God uses people who pray for you. They care about your relationship with God and they want to “journey” with you. If you have a quality relationship with someone, they want to help you pursue your goals, which are to be more like Christ, to glorify God and live a life that is pleasing to Him. Therefore, God uses people who will support you with prayer, who will help keep you in line with your goals and help you reach them. James 5:16 says to confess our sins to each other and pray for each other…that great things happen when a believing person prays. How encouraging to have a friend that will pray for great things to happen for you!
Most importantly we have to be connected to God (and through prayer we can be) and the only way God can use YOU as a V.I.P. to someone else is for you to know Him.
How can you have a heart for quality relationships?
1. Evaluate yourself by these V.I.P. standards – do you validate people, live in such a way that they become better just being connected to you, and do you pray for people?
2. Commit to get connected with V.I.P.’s. Find and put effort into relationships with people who validate you, who you want to be like or who make you want to be better, and also with people who pray for you.
3. Put together an action plan to answer the question “how?” How will you evaluate yourself? How will you connect with other V.I.P.’s? Take action to get yourself to a place where you have a heart for quality relationships.
So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God – all because of what our Lord Jesus Christ has done for us in making us friends of God. -Romans 5:11 NLT
Life works best when you’re connected to the right VIP’s. Our ultimate VIP – most important person- is God who, as we read in Romans 5:11, is our friend.
