RELATIONSHIP PREMIUMS

• Health Insurance Premiums
• Life Insurance Premiums
• Auto & Home Insurance Premiums
• Relationship Premiums?

We often speak, pray and fight for balance or to prioritize our lives and often fail, sometimes drastically. Today I was considering the investment we make in marital and familial relationships. What premiums do we pay to insure their success and what premium do we place on their value?

Many of us do not fail to pay our health, life or auto/home insurance premiums, but we fail to pay into our marriages, our children, our sibling relationships and wonder why the relationships do not flourish. Many hate paying insurance premiums, but want the benefits of our policies when it's time for recompense. Then we're glad we made the premiums. None of us are perfect. I am speaking to myself as much as to anyone else. I suppose relationship premiums are much higher than any of the other premiums. It costs us ourselves. It diminishes our selfcenteredness. It's much more expensive than all the other premiums and more valuable. The benefits are far greater in the long term than any other investment or premium, but too often we fail to recognize it. Sometimes it is not until the "policy" is about to lapse or has lapsed that we realize how great the loss of the benefit of it is to us.

This post is just an encouragement to you today to stop for a minute and evaluate the value of your relationship in perspective to the amount of time spent on things and activities. Look at the big picture, the long term impact and yes, the benefits or importance of them. The messages I see and hear all around me, from Christians and non-Christians alike are sometimes discouraging, but I thank God for His grace, His mercy, His love and His Son. When we fall short, recognize it and repent, His grace is sufficient to restore and heal any relationship. On our own, we are simply incapable of being completely selfless. Let's face it, we are self-centered beings. Jesus showed the way by his incredible example and then gave us His Spirit to enable us to be like him. However, it's a process, it's a daily walk, a daily battle with our flesh. I love the illustration the Apostle Paul gives of this process in 1 Cor. 9:19-27 (read it the full context when you get a chance), I'll only quote the last few verses:
    "Do you not know that in a race, all the runners run but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the race goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore, I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize."

Paul was describing his call to reach the lost and the sacrifice to self do so. His message, however, is to all of us. He likens the secular races, the Olympics and any serious sport or endeavor for which one trains their mind and body to accomplish great things to God's call on our lives. As in the Olympics, the athletes train hard and long at great cost to themselves and often their families. They exercise great discipline to accomplish masterful feats. The same can be said of several other sports that are not included in the Olympics and of other masterful endeavors such as the pursuit of higher education and professional careers. These are all good in proper perspective. I say in proper perspective because Jesus said, "What good is it if a man gains the whole world and loses his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?" (Matt. 16:26-27) 

Jesus sums up relationships and God's premium on relationships like this, first "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind...and the second is like it, 'love your neighbor as yourself." (Matt. 22:37-39) God puts a premium on our relationship with Him and a premium on our relationship with each other. God's premium on relationships cost Him His Son! That is how much He values us. He knows us better than we do ourselves. He knows the wickedness and potential for evil within us, yet He still loves us and sent His Son to redeem us from ourselves because we can't regenerate a purer self. Corruption breeds corruption. Sinfulness breeds sinfulness and as He said in Romans 3:23, "the wages of sin is death". So God gave us His Son, His Gift to save us from that death.

The "second" relationship premium, to "love your neighbor as yourself" is impossible without implementing the first policy or command. We are incapable of loving our neighbors, our families, our enemies, our co-workers, our bosses and our government officials as ourselves, until we first surrender ourselves to God in obedience and love Him first with all our hearts, all our souls and all our minds.

If we want a more fulfilled life, fulfillment does not come through acquiring things. Only limited fulfillment is attained through the accomplishment of trophies, degrees and magnanimous awards. Fulfillment and true success comes through fulfilled and fulfilling relationships. So take some time to evaluate the relationships in your life. Take the time to evaluate the long term value of your relationships and invest in them wisely. I encourage you not to invest in them solely because you see the long term benefit to yourself, for that would still primarily be for selfish gain. Invest in them out of love for God, as an expression of love for God. You see, our love, man's love can be fragile and contingent, but God's love is in- exhaustive. When we continually surrender ourselves to Him, He fills us with His love and renews us when we fall or feel weak. He lifts us up and gives us the courage to keep on loving, to keep on hoping, to keep on forgiving, to keep on trusting, to keep on giving. For God's love - the love He is developing in us, "always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails." (1 Cor. 13:4-8)

Invest, pay the sacrificial premium for the relationships in your life and put a premium, a high value on them, after all, God did.

If you like this post, please also visit my other blog: http://www.wealthofcharacter.blogspot.com/

Don't Believe the Hype

      Everywhere we turn in today's society we are inundated with messages about or alluding to sex. Satan has saturated our society with sexually immoral messages. It's in most television shows and commercials, the movies, the billboards, magazines and grocery and retail stores. Sexy fashions are boldly displayed in retail store windows on mannequins, posters and on bodies, young and old. Book covers, calendars, bumper stickers, girls standing by the roadside with advertising signs; everywhere we look we see images of sex and sensuality. After awhile you can't help but think, "everyone is doing it," or "this is the norm." Therefore, when one comes along who does not follow the hype, he or she is viewed as abnormal.

That is all understandable, however, it should be unacceptable for the body of Christ. I find that many Christian men and women have not had their minds renewed and this is one of the underlying points that Celebrating Men addresses. I want to celebrate, uplift or honor the men who strive to do the right thing and the godly thing in all their relationships. The book isn't just addressing men in relationships with women, but with their children, their community, their marriages, their church and their friendships. The book looks at men in each of those settings; at different stages in the author's life and how they impacted her for good regardless of the initial experience, whether it was good or painful.

The testimony shared, I believe, is uplifting and honoring, however, it doesn't ignore the faults of the men involved and recognizes that none of us are perfect and neither were they. That does not mean there aren't aspects and qualities worth honoring. The author also encourages, and yes, appeals to men, especially Christian men, to renew their minds in regards to how they relate to girls and women.

As Christians, we can't afford to believe the hype of the world or ascribe to the world's view concerning most relationships. If we are truly disciples of Christ, which is where the term "Christian" is derived, then as Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5:16, "So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view...Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old has gone, the new has come!" 

I have a couple of male friends that are in their forties that are also virgins. They became Believers as teenagers. One has three degrees (Engineer, MBA, and Law degree), the other is an officer in the military and they're both attractive men. I also know of a couple other women, two of which married at age 45 and both were virgins when they married. I am not such an anomaly after all then. Maybe to the world in this age I (we) are, but to the body of Christ, I (we) should not be. The voice of the North American/European world is simply louder. There are many Christians and some non-Christians, that are out there waiting for marriage before becoming sexually active.

"Do not be misled: 'Bad company corrupts good character.'" (1 Cor. 15:33) It's important to watch the company you keep. What is that saying, "Birds of a feather flock together"? We need to do a better job at fleshing out the Word of God, that includes, not being ashamed to share our testimony so that others would be encouraged and not feel alone. John recorded in Revelations 12:11 that we will overcome our accuser by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of our testimony. We need to speak up.

Elijah, the prophet in 1 Kings 19 felt all alone after being rejected by the Israelites and found himself running for his life because King Ahab had killed all the other prophets and Ahab's wife, Jezebel wanted Elijah dead as well - "May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely," she said, " if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of them." So the Lord came to Elijah and reminded him that He, God, was with him. Elijah told God, "The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too" (1 Kings 19:14), as if God didn't already know what was going on. I love the Lord's response to him, part of which was, "Yet I (have) reserved seven thousand in Israel-all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and all whose mouths have not kissed him" (Verse 18). God knows how to preserve a remnant who won't bow down to the gods of this world. Don't believe the hype!