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In our day to day activities, we meet, interact, connect and associate with people from different cultures. We all have personal idiosyncrasies which manifest in our interactions with other people. The truth is that we all need each other if we must survive to fulfill purpose.
In 1915, Dr. Henry Dwight Chapin, (a pediatrician) carried out a research on child mortality rate in U.S.A. He reported that the policy in orphanages at the time was “no cuddling.” The babies had died from lack of touch. His findings established that infants need attention to survive. Definitely, we all need relationships to survive.
Believers go through all sorts of persecutions all around the world, particularly about their faith; yet they don’t get discouraged. Most of us are very strong in faith against persecution.
Nevertheless, I have seen Pastors, pious Christian leaders, committed and devoted adherents/followers of Christ being defeated in the area of relationships in life. This suggests that, relationship is a very important part of our lives. Genesis 1:3-31; 2:18-25. God made all things and saw that they were good (verses 10, 12, 18, 21, 25 and 31). God said it is not good for man to be alone. That is, it is not good for man to be without a relationship. Here, He talks about companionship. God emphasizes the fact that man can’t be alone; he needs a relationship in order to fulfill his purpose. That is why He made or formed the woman, Eve out of the man, Adam. He looked at Adam and said He needed another creation. He saw the need for companionship. He observed that there was no companion fit for him among the other creations – animals and plants. Therefore, He made another human being like him for him.
Science has proven that people with good relationships usually have strong immune systems. They often live longer and healthier. It’s been discovered that when a baby is born and never had a touch or feel a tender care, he or she will die, even if he or she is given enough food and drink. Some scientists said that, everyone needs about seven (7) touches daily to develop well and stay healthy.
You are designed for relationships. You are made for connections. I have heard people say that, “All I need in life is Jesus.” That sounds really good, but it’s not really accurate. You need people, you need somebody.
When you pick up few mangoes to eat, especially Ugandan breed which is usually green in colour and always wear unripe face; you will discover that some of them are ripe and tasty while others are unripe and sour. It is difficult to tell by just observing physically whether the mangoes are ripe or not because they all wear green face. They look good when you see them. They smell good really too that is why you can’t really tell whether they are good or bad.
Relationships are like this. Making friends are like when you pick mangoes up. Everyone always sounds the same way when you first meet them. They tend to say good things and emphasize on similarities, the things you share in common until you take a bite out of your relationship with them. The law of reciprocation always comes into play in any relationship. When you give (so much) to someone in a relationship, you surely expect something (perhaps similar) in return. If you are the only one who is always giving, paying for the transport fare, the dinner ticket, etc for a friend; you should know that something is wrong. After a while, you will want the person to reciprocate. That’s the bite. Everyone looks great; every relationship looks great until time has worked upon it. Only time can reveal the true nature of any relationship. When you begin to hang around with a friend in a relationship, you tend to feel at onset that you complement each other and therefore emphasize your similarities until time has worked on the relationship.
When you bite bad mangoes and you put the bad bitten mangoes in your pocket, they will stain your clothes and mess you up in the public. People will surely ridicule you because of the stain, thinking you excreted on your clothes.
Relationships are similar to this. When you bite bad relationships, they leave stains on you. All negative relationships you keep will definitely leave painful and shameful stains on you.
For instance, a woman recently said that all men are liars. I queried and inquired just to found that she was in a marital relationship were she was cheated by her husband who slept out with her best friend for almost 10 years until she discovered. Now they have moved out and the man had abandoned her and her kids. She is devastated, carrying the painful stain in her heart around. She thinks that all men are the same; that they are all liars just like her former husbands because she has been stained.
Every relationship you enter and exit gives you a set of lenses. Usually, you will look at the next relationship with such stained lenses so as to judge it – that what kind of guy or lady is he or she? There is high probability that you will treat and relate with the new guy or lady based on your stained experiences from the previous relationship. Chances are that you will transfer aggressions and make the poor guy or lady to pay for your painful and shameful past. The simple reason for this is that you have been stained. You are looking at the new perhaps wonderful relationship with stained lenses of your painful and shameful past.
All negative relationships give us new lenses to look at the new relationships that come our ways.
More Pastors had quitted the ministries, more lives get shattered, more devoted adherents of Christ abandoned the faith, more churches divided, more businesses folded up and more homes are destroyed intrinsically because of failure in relationships than anything else. You can see a good reason why we need to talk about this.
When people break up a (bad or negative) relationship, they always come out of it with invoices of unpaid cheques. Often, such enter into new relationships with these invoices of unpaid cheques and tend to suffer innocent guys or ladies to pay for what they never did or committed. When a guy or lady goes into a relationship as they truly love each other with proves of love to ascertain their relationship; and everybody celebrates with them perhaps they are engaged, but later the guy cheated on the lady, they broke up the engagement and ended the relationship and parted ways. Guess what the lady does the first time another guy comes to her with lots of beautiful and romantic flowers. Bam mm! She cocks the guy to pay up for the invoices. He didn’t do these to her, someone else did.
We must never make the pleasurable people of our present pay the prize of the painful and shameful people of our past.
Here are ten (10) representations of ugly stains of relationship.
The following are stains that are represented today in most people’s lives coming out of a broken (bad) relationship, people who have experienced a break-up in one way or the other:
1. RAGE:
You will observe that such people with ugly stains of relationship are usually upset at simple things or matter. Often times, you discover that little things which ordinarily should be overlooked get you out of control, make you lose control of your temper and get you furious. It is simply because of the painful past. It is an ugly stain. I pray today that God will set you free from this upset in Jesus’ name.
2. CRITICAL SPIRIT:
Perhaps your parents are perfectionists and nothing you do seems right or correct to them as such to be commended than condemned. They usually criticize you destructively and possibly you get very critical and nothing is good for you of which are obvious to your friends. Here’s the principle: “Stained people stain people. Broken people break people.” I have seen stained leaders destroying lives by staining them because they are stained. If God will use you, He will have to first heal and cleanse you. I pray He will heal and cleanse you today.
3. GUILT:
May be you cheated on your boyfriend or girlfriend, you stole money, you have had abortion, you had a baby out of wedlock or committed a grievous sin; you have once asked God for forgiveness and He has forgiven you and you are now saved. But each time, (you see the baby you imagine will God ever forgive you) you keep remembering the sin and you still feel the scourge of the sins like as if God has not forgiven you and it torments your emotions and thoughts. These bring shame and pains to you. You need to understand that God once He has forgiven us for our sins, He doesn’t remember them because He loves us so much. You need to confess with your mouth now that, “Guilt get away from me in Jesus’ name.” God will take away you bitterness and shame today in Jesus’ name.
4. SHAME:
This is a stain that is rightly attached to guilt. May be you are hooked to porn because porn is bad, it sucks your confidence and attacks your civil integrity. It is a sin you commit secretly which usually bring its attendant shame that last longer than the ones you committed publicly. In times past, to find porn in magazines is exclusively outlaw; but today, with the advancement of technology and high rate of internet networking and information loading, it is popular to find porn all around. Through PDA, ipad, iphone, Blackberry and other smart phone, you can stuff for porn and network with nudity on different IM (chat) networks, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and other Social Utility Network Sites or Groups.
Greater percentage of the world population has gotten smart phones now. Even kids are not left behind, they surf porns through their smart phones without any parental guidance. You have got to declare now that shame you are release from my life today in Jesus’ name.
5. REJECTION:
Your boyfriend or girlfriend once told you that you are not pretty enough, and then abandoned you; or perhaps your parents have never said to you beautiful compliment as to appreciate the way you look. Chances are that you begin to feel rejected. They might have said that that they would have preferred not to have had you just because you failed. Failure is not what we think it is. It is when you refused to try again or get up after a fall, because life is full of ups and downs. When you refused to get up after a fall, you will begin to feel that maybe your parents were right about you; maybe you should not have been born. I tell you, it is never right to think this way. You are who the Lord said you are. He has wonderfully and fearfully made you. Psalms 138:
6. UNFORGIVENESS:
This is a big one. It is like you fight with someone and you wanted to show to the person how much you hate him or her. Then, you take a cup of poison and drink; and wait for the other person to die while you drank the poison. Unforgiveness as illustrated above is like a suicide. It hurts you more than anything, thinking you are hurting the one you refused to forgive. Often times, the person you are not going to forgive does not even know you are offended and needed to apologize and seek forgiveness. Also, it may be due to cheat you have suffered from. That is, someone you once loved so much cheated on you. It’s time to let go of Unforgiveness today. Forgiveness is a gift you should give to yourself. It will set you free. Unforgiveness is a spirit that tears apart on the inside. Set offenders free and let go today that you may be free and totally cleanse on the inside.
“Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who trespassed against us” Matthew 6:12.
7. EMPTINESS:
There is this man I met in a plane one day and he was telling me of how he has been buying this and buying that. He had actually bought so many things; yet he has not fulfilled his desires. This is a sign of emptiness. All he has gotten or bought can not fill his emptiness and satisfy him. This is a deep stain.
Just like a bottle with a broken bottom will always ask for more, whatever such man got can never do it. He will only be trying to fill empty spaces. When you are empty on the inside, you will find yourself doing all sorts of crazy things, changing jobs frequently, moving from one church or assembly to another thinking you are looking for something that is never lost. With all of these, you are never satisfied. It’s because it is not on the outside, it is on the inside and you have been stained.
8. OVER-DEPENDENCE:
May be your parents or usually your boyfriend once told you that, “You need me, who will ever love you that way I do; you need me.” But, now your relationship is about to break-up or is broken. You begin to feel you are incomplete without them or him. You feel you are incomplete without the relationship, you feel if you don’t have a boyfriend, job, house or money you are in trouble. That is fallacy, it is wrong. This is simply over-dependence and over-dependence is the failure to completely rely on God. Over-dependence on materialism and men (human/flesh) is absolutely wrong and ungodly. When you think you need crouches to walk or live in life, you need things to hold you up, you have been stained with over-dependence. I believe God can set you free. You need Jesus, nobody else. He’s your Life, Anchor (that holds forever), Refuge, and Sufficiency, your Everything… It is true that you need a relationship, and that relationship is not primarily with man; but with Jesus. Though you need people for other life’s relationship as to fulfill God’s purpose, but everything starts and ends with the Lord. All other relationship you need in life must stem out of your relationship with Jesus. Therefore, let no man, nobody born of a woman or even angels tell you that you can not make it or survive and be fulfilled without them.
9. LOW SELF-ESTEEM:
Just like over-dependence, usually it’s relational. May be somebody cheated on you or something happened to you and you feel you are not good enough to keep your boyfriend or girlfriend. It’s possible at this point to begin to look down on yourself. Or maybe you observe or find out to discover that all your friends, peers and colleagues are married and some if not all are with kids and here you stand still single. You may have even been the Maid-of-honour or the Best Man to some of them. You may begin to wonder what has gone wrong with you. This kind of thought usually precipitates low self-esteem. Others such as nobody sees me good enough; nobody appreciates the way I am or what I have achieved. When you begin to internalize these kinds of thoughts, pessimistic statements and confessions about your life, you will feel low self-esteem. Today, I believe in Jesus’ name you will be set free and totally delivered.
10. CONFUSED SEXUALITY:
This is a real big stain that is common among the western culture. Though, other cultures of the world are beginning to entertain this stain into their ways of life due to cross-culturization and cultural heterogeneity. Perhaps someone messed up with you when you are little or you have just been let down by too many boyfriends or girlfriends; you will start to feel like you are a man when in the real sense you are a lady or vice versa. You wonder whether you are a male or female that you doubt your sex. May be you think you are a gay, lesbian, homosexual or bestial, etc may be, may be… Don’t let the devil deceive you with a wrong sex identity. Don’t let him take you off the track. God has made you whole, good and perfect and I pray that you will function in that realm in Jesus’ name. You are who He has said you are.
This answers the reason why there are increasing rate of gays, lesbians, homosexuals, bestial, etc in the western world. This stain is so critical that we experience depravity and daily falls or break downs in our culture.
REFLECTION
This message appeals to every man, be you a Pastor, Christian believer or non-believer. If you have never picked a bad mango, it means that you are not a mango picker. That is, all mango pickers must have picked a bad mango in one way or the other and bad mangoes when picked either intentionally or unintentionally always leave a stain on you. More so, if you have truly loved with your heart, you have loved the wrong person and he or she has hurt you and left you stained. I pray that the Lord will bring you deliverance today in Jesus’ name. He wants to heal and deliver you and transmit His power into you.
But you can not heal what you don’t acknowledge. As long as you don’t acknowledge your stains, you will remain battered and possibly shattered. If you want God to take you to the place of fulfillment in your relationships in life and have a new healthy, fruitful and satisfying relationship, you need to acknowledge your stains right now. You can not advance until you have dealt with and cleanse all your stains which have marred you. The easiest way to deal with them is to not deal with them, that is, to ignore them. But, you and I know that if you don’t deal with them they will still be there. It’s time to get healed and be cleansed today.
LITTLE EXERCISE
Take a little piece of paper and write down which stains are you carrying. You will prophetically remove them from your life right now by praying over your list. List out some things you are wrestling with within.
Some people are in a state of excruciating pain, shame, unrest, debt, and distress. God may be talking to you right now about them, today is the day you will be set free from them in Jesus’ name. He is still in the business of washing away stains and makes you clean as white as snow through His precious blood.
Some people are still single today because of those stains of their painful past. God will set you free once and for all in Jesus’ name.
Write down your list and lift up the piece of paper containing your stains to God in Heaven with an open heart, and say these:
“Lord Jesus, I have come to you today with a contrite heart, I acknowledge all my sins, my stains and confess them to you this day. I ask you to wash me clean and take away all these stains. I say NO MORE in Jesus’ name. NO MORE in Jesus’ name. NO MORE in Jesus’ name.
Then, take the piece and tear/shred it into smaller pieces as you can. Throw the shreds into a thrash can or waste bin.
Finally, worship and thank God for healing you and bringing you hope and restoration.
I say to you CONGRATULATIONS!
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