St. John Studies

As I complete my last post on God Speaks Your Love Language, I have to admit that I have enjoyed commenting on the book.

I have always had a sincere interest in interpersonal relationships and Dr. Chapman’s book allowed me to work a lot of my ideas into the posts.

It is my opinion that most of us do not spend enough time working on our closest relationships, making them better, dealing with problems and trying to change.  What should be the most dear is often the most neglected in many cases.  We spend so much time with those around us that we take people for granted and that is a grievous error.

Again, what is the main point of God Speaks Your Love Language?

We must become aware of our own love language needs.   We must become aware of the predominant way we speak love language to others.  We must learn to be proficient in other love languages so we can do what God put us on earth to do…love our fellow man.

Dr. Chapman writes, “I have never met a couple who married with the intention of making each other miserable.  Most people want a loving, supportive, understanding spouse.  I’m convinced the fastest way to have such a spouse is to become a loving, supportive, understanding spouse.”

You may not be there yet.

That’s ok.

No one ever “arrives” while we are here on earth.

But that does not mean that the transformation process cannot get underway.

It can.

I wondered how I would post my last comments on this book and as I was having quality time with the Lord this morning, I put my coffee cup down on an old Adult Sunday School book that my wife keeps beside the bed in the room where I go to be with God.  On the book it says “A Transformed Heart is a Work in Progress.”

That’s exactly what I want to leave you with.

Maybe you have learned that there are areas in your relationships that need improvement.  Maybe you have felt a bit convicted that you have stopped giving your relationships your best.   Maybe you have found yourself in the habit of blaming the other person for problems you both have.

But now you know that this type of stuff needs to stop.

That’s significant.

Do you have the courage to change?  Do you want things to be better?  Do you want the relationships that God has promised you that you will have?

The transformed heart is a work in progress.

Now is the time to move forward.  Now is the time to make some progress.  My Grandfather Mason said “Now is the time to commence!”

In Ephesians 2: 21-22, Paul writes that “In him [Jesus Christ] the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.  And in Him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.”

Truly God intends all of us to be works in progress.

If you have learned, if you have been convicted, if you are aware of your habits, let God take you to new places in your relationships with people on this earth.

Let God take you to new places in your relationship with Him.

It’s all about words of affirmation, physical touch, quality time, giving gifts, and acts of service.

Apply these concepts to your life for your loved ones.  Apply these concepts to your life for our Lord and Savior.

If you were in jail and you had little hope of getting out and suddenly the cell door swung open and there were no guards to stop you, what would you do?

Of course, this refers to the very well-known story of Paul in the prison cell in Philippi.

He and Silas were singing and praying and an earthquake struck.  The earth shook so much that the prison door opened and everyone’s chains came loose.  Paul’s jailer woke up and rushed to the prison, expecting to have to kill the prisoners.  He naturally assumed that they would be attempting to escape.

They weren’t.

They were still in the prison.  They were not going anywhere.

Why?

Paul knew what he needed to do.

Save the jailer.

He spoke to the jailer “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved—you and your household.”  The jailer and his family all became followers of Christ.  Paul baptized them all.

As we begin to leave God Speaks Your Love Language, why is this story appropriate?

It is the attitude of Paul.

Paul knew his purpose in life and his purpose was to bring souls to Jesus Christ.  He knew his actions would speak loudly to the jailer and they did.

What are your actions speaking to the people around you?

What is the purpose of some of the words you say to others?

Are you speaking love?  Are you trying to improve the relationships you have in your life?

Dr. Chapman’s God Speaks Your Love Language has been about putting others first.  Is that not what Jesus Christ exhibited for us in his thirty-three years here on earth?

It is hard.   The world is such a distraction as humans make powerful statements of hatred and violence every day.  The attitude that the world says is that you need to “stand up for yourself,” “push others around to get your way,” “if you have to do wrong to get what you want, that’s ok.”  As Christians, we may be influenced by these messages but we know that is not what God intended for us to do.  Jesus did not show us that behavior.

Turn to 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8 and read “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant and rude.  It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable and resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in truth.  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never ends.”

Does this language sound like the language of our selfish world?

I don’t think so.

These statements about love are all directed toward the well-being of the one being loved.

This is what God has told us in His Word.  He has told us that He loves us, despite the fact that many of us walk away from Him.  He will forgive us and He wants us back.  All we have to do is repent of our sins and ask Him back into our lives.  He wants the best for us.  He wants the best for our relationships.

All we have to do is pay attention to our actions and let God’s spirit guide those actions.  He will help us if we just listen and do what He says to do.

The temptations will always be there.  As Paul was tempted to leave his cell, he fought the urge and won souls to Christ.  He knew what he needed to do.

His actions spoke volumes.

The question for you today is, what are your actions telling others around you?

That you love them?

Dr. Chapman writes: “In every generation and in every culture, the Spirit of God continues to communicate divine love by speaking the love languages of God.  God is both holy and loving.  If man does not respond to His love and accept His forgiveness and the gift of an eternal relationship with Him, then man must face His judgment.  The fork in the road for all mankind is to choose God’s love or God’s justice.”

It is one of my pleasures of life to have a wonderful pastor for a friend.  He and I have been close for about 18 years now and I am not a member of his church.  What’s the significance of that?  He can tell me things he cannot tell his flock.

I am honored to be his sounding board.

He has a man in his church who has turned his back on his wife.  This man has taken up with a younger woman and has stopped going to my friend’s church.  The problem is, my friend wants to minister to this man, wants to lead him back to the flock, wants him to choose the love of God as the way back to right relationship with God.

Now the young man is floundering.  By this I mean that he feels remorse but he seeks someone to justify his actions.

Can he find that person?  Sure he can.

Can he find a pastor that will “excuse” him?  Sure he can.

Can he find a congregation that will accept him as he is now, forgetting that he has committed adultery?  Sure he can.

That’s how desperate some churches are to get members.

What is his best option?

Repent and choose God’s love.

What could he do?

Run from what he has done.

Dr. Chapman says it best when he says every generation has to make the choice.  Every generation has to come to the fork in the road—God’s love or God’s justice.

I have been in situations; you have too.  When you know you are doing wrong and you just can’t deal with it.  You feel convicted but there is a pull on you.  The pull is away from God and into a world of self- centeredness, temptation, greed, lust, covetousness etc..  The list is long.

You want to be forgiven.  You want to be told that you are right.  You want to feel ok.

But you know you are not.

One of today’s terms that gets tossed around a lot by people who espouse to be “spiritual” but they are not spiritual [in a Christian God sense] is the word karma.  I am not a fan of that word.  It is a pop term for justice.  God will allow the young man to go a long time without repercussions but there will be a time when God’s justice will come.   God wants all of us to choose Him.  My pastor friend wants the young man to choose Him.   I don’t know the young man very well but I want him to choose Him.

Choosing God is the only way that he will ever be right.

Choosing begins with admitting that he has done wrong.  The young man needs to say to God, “I have done wrong Lord, please forgive me.”  If it is said with a pure, sincere heart, God will forgive.

You see, God wants him back.  God sent his only Son to pay for the sins of this young man but he must accept this loving provision of God’s payment.  He must accept responsibility for his actions.

He can do this.

Take the fork and go toward God’s love.

“Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’”

That’s it.  My favorite Bible verse: Matthew 22:37.

The focus is on love.  The focus is on the heart and soul and mind.  It’s the first and greatest commandment said Jesus.

I think of it as a growth verse.  Jesus is imploring his followers to love God with all we have including the mind.  That is important to me.  I like to acknowledge we all have minds and we all need to exercise them.

Life can dull us to growth and that is regretful.  It happens all the time.  We have our “go to” behaviors, our habits.  Our comfort zones.  Those are soothing but they are also deadening to growth.

God put us here on earth to serve a purpose; to grow, to love and not to hate.

John Ortberg cites the purpose of the life of Jesus in his video study “All the Places to Go.”   The people of Israel wanted a proud, powerful warrior to help them overthrow the Roman dominance of their land, yet they got a man who did the opposite of war; he taught us how to love.  His lessons have turned the world upside down.  They expected a man of power and violence and they got a man of love.

Of course Dr. Chapman is not Jesus, but he is sold on the idea that to change our world we need to make our love connection with those around us.  You can’t do it with church alone.  So many are hampered by their idea of “doing religion.”  You know the disciplines of attending, tithing, praying and trying to be good members.  They hope that will get them into heaven.

But that won’t do it.   We need to have that God connection, that love connection.  The God that was so active in the lives of Abraham, Joseph, Isiah and Ezekiel can be alive in our lives today if we reach out beyond the confines of our church comfort zones and do what God intended us to do.

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”

That means working hard to affirm others with our words.  That means giving things away to those who have need. That means spending quality time with loved ones and private quality time with God in Bible reading and prayer.  That means doing things for people who need our help.  That means touching others with our hugs of acceptance and love.

Learn to speak all five love languages and USE them.  Use them to the point that you are spreading God’s love around to those that need it.

Be the Bible.  You have heard the expression that [ Bill? ] is the only Bible they will ever know.  Anyone can be Bill; slide your name in there.  People need to see you as their Bible; you may be the only Bible they will ever see.  You can make a strong case about your faith with your behavior.

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”

Yes Jesus said that is the first and greatest commandment but what was the second?

Matthew 22: 39, “And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

Dr. Chapman says in Chapter 10, “Our relationship with God does not end when we make the God connection.  In fact it just begins.”

This is an exciting time when someone connects with God, when someone learns what having a relationship with God and Jesus Christ means.  It is more than church.  It is a new life with our Savior.

Dr. Chapman feels that the process of growing in Christ will be enhanced greatly with awareness of our love languages.

Awareness of your preferred love languages is your first major accomplishment.

But it is that, the first step.

Knowledge that you probably speak that language [s] to others is another major accomplishment.

But Dr. Chapman does not want us to stop there; neither does God.

Using me as an example, touch is my primary love language with a score of 10.   Right behind that is quality time with a 9.

But what about acts of service, words of affirmation and gifts?

God wants me to learn to speak those love languages to others.  He wants me to be fluent in languages that are not my preferred languages.

It won’t be easy.  He says “learning to speak other love languages may take time and effort.”  But there is one thing we must remember.  We are the channels of God’s love.   John 15: 5-6:  “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in Me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from Me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in Me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.”

We are the branches that produce fruit and Dr. Chapman believes that much of that fruit is generated from the love language we speak to others.

Why should we be concerned with this?  The answer is obvious.  Because God is love and He has accepted us and loved us.  He does not want us to horde the love we receive.  He wants us to pass that love along to others.  It is a new purpose for our lives.

Dr. Chapman says that love is a key element that should be expressed to others within the Christian community.   But people who are fluent in all love languages know how to fulfill a need that is very much part of the non-Christian world.  All people long to be loved and that is a major reason they will join a church, the feeling of love and acceptance that they feel there.

What an honor it is to be an instrument of God.

Through our willingness to learn the 5 love languages, God can use us.  We can assume a new identity, the identity we are meant to have, an ACTIVE Christian bringing glory to the Lord.

It starts with effectively sending and receiving messages.  It continues with learning new languages.

It results in growth.

Don’t you want to grow?

I do.

I have close family members who don’t believe in Jesus.  In fact, they shy away from anything related to Jesus.  When I am around them, Jesus is a “taboo topic.”  Before you think Westboro Baptist Church [ the photo above ] represents all of us Christians, I am here to tell you they don’t and in my opinion, the Christians in the picture above do more damage to Christianity than good.

They just add more fuel to the fire for my family members who don’t believe in Jesus.

I suspect my family members tend to focus on the fact that Christians fall short.

We sometimes do.  We have to own that.

I teach an adult Sunday school class and I try to get the class to shy away from contemporary politics because issues today are very emotional and we often don’t have enough perspective on them to really express ourselves.  If I let my class stray away on politics, I might hear disparaging things about transgender people, the police and African-American people, poor people who live on welfare and don’t want to work etc.  You know the kinds of thoughts we all have.

Let’s just call them judgmental.

They are.

They can fall very short of the love that Jesus wants us to express.

Let’s call them self-righteous.

They are.

They can fall very short of the understanding that we need to have to really help others.

Dr. Chapman* says that religion can become a “shackle of Satan” if we are not careful.

When we act like we are better than others who need our help, all we do is place distance between ourselves and others.  None of us is perfect and we need to never forget that.   Matthew 6:14-15  “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses”.

I am going to refer to a post from Joshua Elek’s blog, who shared his top reasons people hate Christians.

His opinions hurt but we may have to admit that some of his ideas are correct.  Too often they are real and too often they are probably some of the reasons I have close family members who don’t believe in Jesus.

1.Christians have strict guidelines for living and if you don’t follow their guidelines, they tell you that you will burn in hell.

2.Christians are not forgiving when non-Christians sin.  However they are often quick to forgive other Christians.

3.Christians are hypocritical.  They set the bar high yet they cannot achieve it.  It is obvious to others outside the Christian community.

4.Christians deny science.  Christians reduce all social issues down to black and white, good and bad—in short, if you don’t see things their way, you are stupid.

5.Christians hate people who disagree with them; for example homosexuals, people who advocate freedom of choice for abortion etc.

6.Christians take themselves too seriously.  They are self-absorbed and they try not to do things that the rest of the world does because they are afraid of the spiritual repercussions [which is justified].  The problem is they tell other people how they must behave.   In reality, this throws up barriers between themselves and others, especially when they point out that others are making serious mistakes [that is, going to hell].

Mr. Elek’s opinions are extreme at times.  He admits that.  However we have to admit that they are also true at times.  Anytime someone takes a broad brush and makes comments about a big group of people, they will “miss the mark” so to speak, but can you see why Dr. Chapman says that religion can become a “shackle of Satan?”

Christians can become so insulated from reality that we take our position on the throne of justice and we mete out judgments on others and those are not helpful.  What impact we can make on this world is blunted by this stance.  Instead of approaching others with love, we approach them with scorn and that is not a way to help.  That is a way to hurt.

If someone hears reports of this type of scornful behavior in the news media over and over, what happens?  They may get turned off and begin to not believe in Jesus.  If someone reads of Christian history and learns about the persecution of “heretics”, abuses by early church leaders in the quest for power, crusader wars in the name of God,  the Inquisition, American witch hunts, the southern American plantation owner’s attitude toward African-American slavery, they may get turned off and begin to not believe in Jesus.  If someone encounters “heavy-handed” Christians who have no love in their hearts and no ability to have empathy for other humans who are not like-minded, they may begin to not believe in Jesus.

Jesus did not come to earth to give us the tools to hate.  Jesus did not come to earth to give us a method to separate ourselves from others, to “disconnect.”  Jesus did not come to earth to give us a “shackle of Satan.”

He came to show us how to make the world a better place.

How will I be able to prove to my close family members that Jesus is real and He lives in me and He lives in them?  By demonstrating to them that I have what Jesus had.

An ability to love my fellow man.

*From his book  The Love Languages of God

As I began reading Chapter 10, I was struck.

Apartheid is hard to defend.  The domination of a black African population by an all-white government seems so wrong.  Domination may not be a word that is strong enough.   Maybe the best word would be repression.  Yet that is what we read about in Chapter 10. We encounter a strong man [Michael Cassity] who worked hard to get rid of this from the country of South Africa.

The sentence that struck me was this one: “There were 40 million people in South Africa who called themselves Christians, but most had little interest in applying Christianity to social structures of life.”  In other words, they were ok with repression of the black South African population.  They did not see their beliefs about Apartheid as antithetical to Christianity.

It is.

Today we do all kinds of things to twist our beliefs to fit everyday life.

I may make you mad but here is how I see a “committed Christian.”

1.They like going to church.  They actively participate in church.  If there is a Wednesday program, they attend.  If there is a potluck, they attend.  If they can help out with special projects, they help.  They are not just a 1 hour per week Christian [Sunday worship hour].  They like being around their church family.

2.They accept leadership positions in the church.  They recognize that work won’t get done without good leadership and they don’t shy away from work.

3.They read their Bibles and work to develop their faith through the church.

4.They believe salvation comes through Jesus Christ and they will share their faith with others.  They use their belief to spur themselves on to make the world a better place for all peoples.

This is how I see a “cultural Christian” [opposite of the committed Christian].

1.There is no outward sign that they are Christian.   They don’t like attending church yet they say they believe in God.  They are very accepting of anything that is happening in society today, from transgenderness to drug experimentation.   The idea is to live and let live.  It is all ok.

2.They don’t pray or read the Bible.  There is no effort to develop their faith through Bible study.

3.Jesus is not the only way to be saved.  In fact this type of Christian is likely to tell you that Hindus and Christians worship the same god and Jesus is not essential to salvation.  This is called “universality theology.”

4.It there are social ills, they are likely to ignore those.  There is an idea that “bad behavior” is not related to your beliefs.  If things need to be improved and made more consistent with Biblical principles, cultural Christians are not the ones to do that.

“Little interest in applying Christianity to social structures of life.”

What about the poor?

What about the hungry?

What about people who don’t know Christ?

What about people who are repressed?

This world is not a perfect place and it never will be.  That means there is a need for a lot of work to be done, work that will not be done by cultural Christians.  Another name for these people is CINO.  That is not a flattering term.  It refers to Christians in name only.  They like the word attached to their name but there is not much about them that means they are followers of Christ.

Later in Chapter 10, Dr. Chapman says in a paraphrase of 1 John 4:20 “How can you say that you love God whom you have not seen when you do not love your brother whom you have seen?”  Love of one another is a prerequisite for Christianity; love of one another is a requirement of Christianity.

It is a high bar, but it leads to having “interest in applying Christianity to social structures of life.”

“Committed Christians”; in my book, the best type.

Dr. Chapman finishes Chapter 9 with three examples of people who are in painful circumstances, Clarence who has multiple sclerosis, Robert who was a homosexual, renounced that lifestyle and became a minister and lost his ministry, and Brad who wanted to be a singer in music ministry and could not carry a tune or beat out a rhythm.  He was told he did not have what it takes to sing.

To make matters worse, Clarence was a language of touch person who had no control of his muscles.  Robert was an acts of service person who had his acts of service opportunity taken from him and Brad thrived on words of affirmation and he was told he could not do his love—no words of affirmation for his music.

Tim Keller*, one of my favorite Christian authors, talks about the way Christians refer to pain, the metaphor is “walking through the pain.”  He states “walking through [pain]  is something difficult, perilous and potentially fatal.  [But] the walking metaphor points to the idea of progress. Many ancients saw adversity as merely something to withstand and endure without flinching, or even feeling, until it goes away. Modern Western people see suffering as something like adverse weather, something you avoid or insulate yourself from until it passes by.”

Today we want to avoid pain at all cost.  We have high powered pain meds, when life gets too painful, we go to rehab, when we need a break from pain, we call in “sick”, when stressful times come, we deaden the pain with alcohol.

Can suffering lead to learning?

Can suffering lead to growth?

Sure it can.

Many people refuse to see God in pain but He is there.  He may not be the originator of the pain but he can get you through the pain.

The pain itself is a way to find out who you really are.  Again Keller says “If you believe in Jesus and you rest in Him, then suffering will relate to your character like fire relates to gold. Do you want to know who you are—your strengths and weaknesses? Do you want to be a compassionate person who skillfully helps people who are hurting? Do you want to have such a profound trust in God that you are fortified against the disappointments of life? Do you want simply to be wise about how life goes?”  You can get all that from the pain and disappointment of life.

But what about the pain that breaks a person down, relentless pain?

Sometimes it happens that way.

Keller says to avoid this, “you must walk with God.” He likes the idea of walking associated with pain because walking “consists of steady, repeated actions you can keep up in a sustained way for a long time….A walk is day in and day out praying; day in and day out Bible and Psalms reading; day in and day out obeying, talking to Christian friends and going to corporate worship, committing yourself to and fully participating in the life of a church. It is rhythmic, on and on and on. To walk with God is a metaphor that symbolizes slow and steady progress.”

You literally walk through pain with a steady walk with God.

What happens to lots of people?  In the midst of pain, they give up on God.

I am reminded of pain when I experience pain in my daily life.

One of my strong love languages is quality time, so every morning I meet God in an upstairs room in my house.  I am 63 and I have sixty-three year old pains from time to time.  This morning when I was with God and I had persistent neck pain, I thought about the pastor up the street with Alzheimer’s Disease,  I thought about a good friend who has Parkinson’s Disease, I thought of a member of my church who has hospice in his home and I realized my pains are minor.

Pastor Keller takes relativity even further with Jesus.  He talks of pain as being thrown into a furnace.  He says “if you say to yourself when you get thrown into the furnace, ‘This is my furnace. I am not being punished for my sins, because Jesus was thrown into that ultimate fire for me. And so if He went through that greatest fire steadfastly for me, I can go through this smaller furnace steadfastly for Him. And I also know it means that if I trust in Him, this furnace will only make me better.’”

Through pain, Clarence found God and became a prayer warrior.  Through pain, Robert began a ministry to help homosexual people who are conflicted with their lifestyle choices vs. Christianity.  Through pain, Brad became a powerful Bible study teacher at his church.

None of these things would have been possible without pain.

And the fact that all three men chose to “walk through it.”

*From Walking with God through Pain and Suffering by Tim Keller

This week we have been talking about God’s discipline and that is a tough subject to understand.

It is hard to see that God’s love can be manifest in discipline; things we want denied, infirmities that we pray to go away and they stay, and even personal tragedies.   It is all so confusing.  How could a loving God allow such misery?

Dr. Chapman says it well in the words, “His discipline toward us is always for our ultimate good.”

Let’s break this statement down a bit.  Focus on the word ultimate.  As a human, I have a hard time with that word because it connotes a long-term view.  When things in my life are not right, I am focused on the present day circumstances and I am upset.  However God is not upset.  He knows ultimately that I will be ok.

I need to believe that ultimately I will be ok.  I need to believe God.

“His discipline is seldom pleasant and sometimes extremely painful, but His purpose is to move us down the pathway of righteousness and peace,” says Dr. Chapman.

I believe Dr. Chapman is “right on target.”

In Jeremiah 29: 11-14 the Bible says “For I know well the plan I have in mind for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare, not for woe!  Plans to give you a future full of hope.  When you call me, I will listen to you.  When you look for me, you will find me.  Yes, when you seek me with all your heart, you will find me with you, says the Lord and I will change your lot.”

We want to see the plan, the blueprint for our lives.  We want to see the next 20 or 30 steps down the road.  We want to know how it is all going to work out.

God knows.  We never will.

But what does God want from us?

Dr. Chapman says we need to try to live a life “in keeping with the Creator’s design.”  I have a friend who asks why?  “What is the big payoff?  I will have to give up my drinking, my smoking.  I will have to watch what I say.  I will have to start coming to church and I will need to begin helping other people.  Man that’s no fun.”

What’s the big payoff for choosing to make better decisions?

Peace.

You know you are moving in the right direction and God knows it too.  You are not doing what your friends want.  You are not doing what your coworkers want.  You are not doing what “the world” wants.  You are doing what God wants.  God is your accountability partner.

Do you have peace in your life right now?

Do you know you are making the effort to do the right things in your life right now?

Even though you may be experiencing the pain of discipline, are you steady in your course toward God?

Discipline can make us turn away from God, but it is not designed to do that.  It is designed to correct us and move us closer to God.  Often discipline comes about because we have moved away from our Lord in the first place and He is using discipline to get our attention and correct our behavior.

What about your human relationships?

Do you have peace in your relationships or are you being disciplined right now?  Are you having a miserable time with your spouse, family members or friends?

What should we be having with our relationships?  Dr. Chapman uses the word “harmony.”  By this he means “We want our emotions, thoughts, desires and actions to relate to each other harmoniously.”  The truth is, many of us have anxious relationships, disappointing relationships, sad relationships as we can’t find a way to relate to each other.

In the context of his book, we can’t speak a love language that works with those around us.

Or we don’t want to learn how to.

What is the big payoff?  In our human relationships it may be learning a new way to communicate which leads to harmony which results in peace.

When we walk in righteousness, we experience peace.

When we walk in righteousness in our relationships, we experience harmony.

I can’t think of a bigger payoff than that.

“Tear down this wall!” was the challenge issued by United States President Ronald Reagan to Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev to destroy the Berlin Wall, in a speech at the Brandenburg Gate near the Berlin Wall on June 12, 1987, commemorating the 750th anniversary of Berlin.  It is also the challenge that Dr. Chapman gives us in his book “God Speaks Your Love Language.”

But what if the person you are in a relationship with does not want to work to tear down the wall that exists between you and them?  You want your relationship to improve but they are showing no interest.

Yesterday we wrote about not finding fault in others but admitting personal faults.  We wrote about asking forgiveness for our shortcomings.

Say you do that, but your loved one does not want to reciprocate?

What do you do?

First of all you need to feel better about yourself.  You have made a move in the right direction and as Dr. Chapman says, “you are free to be a part of the solution instead of a part of the problem.  You can be a positive stimulus for good in the relationship.”

There is a long list of reasons the other person will not make a move to change the relationship dynamic.  Maybe they are too prideful to change; that would mean they would have to acknowledge some of their faults.  Many people are mired in habits that have been there a long time and sometimes they are not even aware of what they are doing  [actions become automatic].  There are people who fear change of any kind.  My Mom is fearful to change doctors even though she is not too pleased with the local doctor she has seen for many years.  She says “at least he is familiar ground.”   They may not be sure about your motivation to change; they have suspicions that you are “up to something” and possibly you are trying to manipulate them.  Lastly, some people are so angry that they won’t change.  Your change challenges them to change and they don’t want to.  The may even work hard to get you to go back to your old ways, even though your old ways were driving them crazy.

These are just a few reasons why people may resist the removal of barriers between themselves and you.

How is a wall destroyed?  The easy answer is one block at a time.

This is going to sound flip but it was built that way.  It probably started as something small and slowly but surely resentment set in.  Believe it or not, it could be as minor as taking out the garbage or it could be as major as failing to meet another’s sexual needs.

What do we do to mortar that block?  We ignore it.  It settles in and then another block is added until the wall is high on both sides and it is a serious matter.

I have to admit that tearing down a wall from both sides is ideal but believe it or not, if you begin to dismantle a wall from your side, your spouse will have an easier time beginning demolition.

James 4:17 “So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.”

You know you need to make the first move.  You know you have faults you need to confess.  You know you need to seek forgiveness.

Go ahead.

Begin to tear down that wall.