HOW TO KNOW I AM IN A RIGHT RELATIONSHIP (PART 1)

Message by Pastor Kunle Osunkunle

"GOD TOLD ME"

Sometimes, when people want to go into a relationship, they often go with the notion “God told me” and therefore perceive it to be a right relationship. But, maybe you actually told yourself because you have seen the man or lady so well often times then you feel it must be God bidding you to go into a relationship with him or her. Even when it seems like you have certain things in common and everything seems to match, it is still not a substantial proof to say whether it is a right relationship or not. The mathematics of God usually is not man’s mathematics because a good thing may not be a God-thing. God has a good plan for you; you need to discern it and follow His plan and purpose so that you will live a fulfilled life. Though God is interested in you having a good relationship and building a successful and fruitful marriage; but you must be willing to follow His plans for you.

At times, when you go into a relationship that is right for you, you end up messing it up because you fail to see the wrong things in the relationship. Relationship is not only about enthusiasm.

Enthusiasm

“Enthusiasm without knowledge is no good; haste makes mistakes. People ruin their lives by their own foolishness and then are angry at the Lord.” Proverbs 19:2-3 (NLT). Even if you feel enthusiastic about a relationship, if you don’t have the right knowledge and take time to find out to know the quality of the person you want to court you will mess it up. You need to give time to test things. It is a process, so you must have time to test the relationship even though you have enthusiasm. As a result, you need to get wisdom and get understanding. Open your eyes to see if the relationship is good for you or not so that you will have no reason to complain to God. Otherwise you will get hurt.

“Faith comes by hearing…” By this, even if God has told you certain things about the relationship, you need to continue to walk with Him so that He will always speak to you about it. He can open your eyes to all the things you need to know. When people get into a relationship and they don’t seek for knowledge and open their eyes to truth, they get hurt and ruin their lives. Then, they complain to God. Although God might have told you to go into a relationship, but you need to keep listening to Him and hear things He has to say to you about the relationship for it to be successful. That is the pattern of faith.

THINGS TO CONSIDER IN ORDER TO HAVE A SUCCESSFUL RELATIONSHIP

Laying the foundation courses

1. Lay a good foundation: As written in Isaiah 28:16, you can compare a relationship or marriage with Zion. In Zion good things happen just like whoever finds a wife finds a good thing. Proverbs 18:22. There is a foundation in Zion, in the same way, if you want the goodness and peace in your relationship or marriage you need to lay a good foundation. When you have a foundation it is assumed that you are ready to build and that there will be challenges in the future. If you will go into a relationship, it is assumed that there will be challenges. So, you need to build a foundation. The deeper the foundation the higher the structure you can build.
As single men and women, the single life is a time to build a deep foundation so that you can have a successful relationship. The proper foundation any man can lay in life to have a successful and fulfilled life is Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 3:11-13. Jesus Christ is the beginning of any relationship and if your relationship is not built on the word of God it will crash.

2. Use the right building materials: The kind of material you use in build your relationship is very important to the survival and success of your relationship. 1 Corinthians 3:12-13. If you use gold, when fire comes and challenges arise, it will purify it and make it more successful, strengthens it and make it grow instead of destroying it. Therefore, when you build your relationship with the right ingredients, when you pass through fire and challenges it becomes better, stronger and it grows. On the other hand, if you build it with straw, when fire comes on it and challenges arise, it will be destroyed.
When you are in a relationship, rather than sleeping together get to talk and discuss to build a strong and better relationship. If you build your relationship on sex before marriage (pre-marital sex), it is a foundation for disaster in marriage.

3. You need to build according to pattern: There is a pattern for building a right relationship in the word of God. Just as God gave Moses a pattern for the building of the tabernacle, for you to have a successful relationship you must build according to the pattern of God for marriage. Jesus Christ is the Architect; He has given you the plan drawings which are in the Word of God. Jeremiah 29:11. You are the Builder, you need to read and study carefully the Word of God and interpret the design pattern accordingly so that you build in total compliance with the pattern. It is pathetic to know that so many people today are building relationships and marriages that are not in line with the pattern of God. Look at the plan of God for your relationship in the Word of God and translate it appropriately to build your relationship.

4. You must try your foundation: Even if the relationship you are intending for has been given to you by God, you must try it and it takes time to try a relationship. The need for this is to carry out adequate stability test on it to ensure it can withstand pressure and also to know if it has strengths of character. For you to test it, it has to be through time. Give your relationship the test of time. This requires a process.
When you hear people say “God told me”, you need to be careful because every man has the ability to hear four voices – The voice of God, their personal voice, other people’s voices and the voice of the devil. There are people who are going into a relationship (because they had a voice) but they cannot sustain it. They don’t have an inclination of what it is all about.

5. Don’t act hastily: You must not jump into quick conclusion and don’t make a very fast decision. There is a blessing for someone who is patient. When you spend enough time with the person you intended to go into a relationship with (as a friend), you may discover certain things that will help you decide not to go into a relationship with him or her. Whether you like it or not the person you are going to marry is like a Prophet to you. He or she will prophesy either the right or wrong thing to your life, or make you feel less than whom you are or make you feel your real worth and challenge you to greater things. The Word of God instructs us to test every spirit to prove and discover if they proceed from God. 1 John 4:1.
You need to put your intended spouse’s daily actions to test to know whether his or her attitudes are good or not. You must test and prove all things to keep to what is good. 1 Thessalonians 5:21. Don’t go around setting traps for him. Rather, let him be himself and as he deals with you on a daily basis, you will discover things that you cannot do without, things that he needs to change and things that are like warning signals which indicate if you go on with the relationship and enter marriage, you are heading for trouble.

Let him/her go if need be...

Don’t go into a relationship with the notion that “he or she will change”. You are not the Holy Spirit. He is the only one that can convict and change any man. You must see progress and signs of change before you ever think of proceeding in the relationship to marriage. Don’t just commit yourself to the man or woman, let him or her prove to you he/she is worthy of you. 1 Corinthians 4:2 (AMPLIFIED). Don’t cheapen yourself and think that if you don’t agree to his pressure he will leave. Be resolute on that if he will not stay by accepting your standards let him go before he spoils your life. Only commit yourself to someone who has proven to you faithful.
When you are in a relationship you must talk and talk and talk. Don’t stop talking because that is what the discovery process in a relationship involves. Don’t sleep together. Once you start sleeping together you will stop talking and once you stop talking, the discovery process terminates.

CONSIDER THESE THINGS BEFORE STARTING A RELATIONSHIP


1.       YOU NEED TO KNOW: You need to have the knowledge of things to check out for in the relationship. If you lack this you will not be able to know if the relationship is good or bad. Hosea 4:6. Knowledge is firstly important.

2.       GET YOUR MOTIVES RIGHT: You need to check your motive for the relationship to see if they are right or wrong and be sincere. You must always check motives. People go into relationship for different reasons; for instance, to feel safe, to run away from home, to satisfy parental pressure or peer pressure, to deal with rejection (because he or she needs someone to love and validate him/her), to give love, etc. You must know why you are in the relationship whether to give love or not. We are all products of influence in life. A lady who has suffered rejection will naturally give in to anyone that shows her some interests and perhaps fall for his mischievousness. You must have the capacity to know what is good for you and what is not good for you before you can rightly discern a right relationship.

3.       YOU MUST HAVE THE CAPACITY TO EVALUATE & ASSESS: “To evaluate” means “to put value and worth on something and be able to determine its significance on a particular condition.” Imagine if someone wants to interview you for a position and does not have the knowledge of the position. There are people who are like this; they interview others for a position of husband or wife without knowing who a husband or wife is and their roles. Such cannot conduct a successful interview. If you don’t know what his/her roles are you will not look for them. You need to get knowledge. If you don’t know what is right how can you carefully think about it? 1 Corinthians 15:34. You need to carefully evaluate the person you want to marry so that you don’t have a bad relationship.

No relationship leaves you neutral as in the same way. It is either it makes you better or bitter. Every relationship changes you, it will definitely takes something from you and give you certain things. Think carefully if you are going into a relationship.
If you have someone who is having a feeling of rejection and insecurity, such person is always looking for someone to validate her. Even when she is looking good, she wants someone to validate her look to feel some happiness and adequate.
The challenge is that nobody can give you self-esteem and make you feel really good except yourself. You have to do it by yourself through the help of God by the Holy Spirit.

4.       RELATE AT YOUR LEVEL: As human beings we like to walk and relate at in levels. Usually, we relate with someone who is like us except the person exhibits some things we don’t like. You need to go into relationship with someone who is at the same stand point with you, someone who is attracted to the kind of person you are and have the same ideologies with you. If you go into a relationship with someone who is expecting to receive love just as you are also expecting to receive, you will be disappointed. One of the reasons we have divorce, so much hurts and disappointment in relationships and marriages today is because the expectations of one or both partners are not met. When your needs for the relationship are met. If you don’t know how to give love and validate yourself you cannot give it to another person.

5.       LET LOVE STARTS FROM YOU: When you are disappointed because your needs are not met in a relationship, you get hurts, makes you sick and feels heartbroken. Proverbs 13:12. That is why you need to give love to yourself first rather just expecting to receive it. That is where it starts. How you know things are right in your relationship is by checking from yourself first of all. How much love have you given yourself before you expect someone else to give you love or give love to someone else?

There is nothing like love at first sight, it is lust at first sight. It is true you are attracted to someone at first sight because it is eye-to-body contact communication, yet this is not love because what you see at first sight is the container, you need to find out about the content before you decision reasonably on whether to love the person or not.
When you are in a relationship and things don’t work out, it doesn’t mean you are a bad person. It is simply that you are not compatible. You are not looking for someone who is perfect, but someone who you are perfect for you.

Remember that, when you are in a relationship, ensure that you prove all things and lay a solid foundation. To know whether you are in a right relationship or not, first of all you need to find out from your point of view whether you know things that are right. It is important to start from yourself.

CHARACTER (Part 2) - RESPECT

Message by Pastor Kunle Osunkunle

(The President of Singles Fellowship, The Fountain of Life Church)

Character is like a foundation. It is a spring board from which all we do and say in life comes. If this foundation should crack, so many other things in your life will be cracked. The truth is that there are so many people who do not have the right character.

The attitude anyone needs to learn first of all is how to reveal Christ to people so that we can actively represent Him. Character is not about subtraction (that is, taking away), it is about addition.

2 Peter 1:5 says, “...add to your faith virtue, knowledge, self control, perseverance, godliness, kindness, and love.”

Respect is on of the vital building blocks in the life of a man.

1 Samuel 30:1-15.

Ziglag is a place where David stayed; he was raided while he was away. When he came back, he was very distressed when he found out that his wives, his children, his men’s wives and their children too had all been taken away. In the midst of the distress, they found a slave who ordinarily was a nonentity. Somebody who people would say was no use, and to prove this, his master must have abandoned him there thinking he was of no use to him any longer. This was somebody he had served for so long, but because he became sick, his master thought things were more important than him; therefore he left him.

Now let me ask you, if it was his master’s son that was sick, would he have left his son? No. But because he thought this guy was of no use, the animals can kill him in the wilderness or whoever sees him can kill him and he would even die of hunger. But somebody else – David found him. Now, David was in distress, agony and pain, which he felt he had lost everything. Even the people whom he had given a life that had no life before, his men started talking about stoning him. Now, if you were in that position, you’ve lost everything that you’ve worked for; even the people you have helped to climb the ladder of life are now against you; if anyone of them comes to you, I’m sure you will disrespect the person.

Now he found somebody who was part of the people who raided him. The first thing he did was to offer him food and drink until he regained his full strength.

There are so many of us that sometimes, we despise and disrespect the gifts that God has given to us, because we think those people are beneath us. Because we think that we are better than some people. David was distressed so it was a good situation for him not to show respect to anyone and the same thing happens to us a number of times. We are pressed and often under a lot of pressure and here come somebody willing to meet you or relate with you. Because of that pressure, you disrespect the person forgetting that he or she may be a gift to you.

David prayed and God told him, pursue, you will overtake. Sometimes, we pray for miracles to happen in our lives and God tells that that miracle is going to happen. You pray ‘Lord, where is my husband? Lord where my wife is?’ and God says ‘Soon you will meet your wife; soon you will meet your husband.’ And that person comes, because you are under pressure, you disrespect the person. Because you think ‘I am under pressure,’ you disrespect the gift. That’s not your portion in Jesus Name.

At times, we loose things and it is the little foxes, the Bible says that spoil the vine, the things we do not think are important, they are so important that they take us off course, therefore today you need to start paying attention to the little things that you think does not matter.

Be careful how you treat people and what you tell people in times of distress, because you may disrespect your gift.

Respect is defined as esteem for or a sense of the worth of excellence of a person. It is also defined as to show regard or consideration. You can also say that it is acknowledging that someone has value and worth. This does not mean that you agree with what people say all the time, but you still treat them like you know they have worth, they have value. It is a spirit of reverence for people. And it is not where they are or what they are doing; you need to give them respect.

If you read Roman 12:10, the later part of it, one version says “...give each other more honour, than you want for yourself...” Many of us want people to honour us, respect us, but do you respect people?

1 Peter 2:17 (New Living Translation Bible) “Respect everyone...”

No matter what their class it, no matter who they are, ‘respects everyone’ The Bible has not put a condition. If they respect you, respect them... is that what the Bible says? No. It is absolute

... and love your Christian brothers and sisters, fear God and respect the King

1 Peter 2:17 (The Message Bible) “Treat everyone you meet with dignity. Love your Spiritual family. Revere God, respect the government.”

Do you know what it means to treat everyone with dignity? Because they are Kings and Queens in their own right. The Bible says that God has made us in his image, so if I disrespect anyone, I disrespect the image of God upon that life. We all know that God does not show partiality. The Bible says that God is not partial; He is no respecter of a person. I have found out that human beings are prone to attaching values on others based on what he sees on them.

If a brother walks in now and he is wearing a ‘powerful’ shirt, you’ll attach some value to him. Or you come into church and see a brother or a sister driving a BMW 3 Series, you’ll say “ah this sister must have value” You have defined her/him by their car. It’s amazing to know how people categorize others like they categorize cars. ‘Oh, this one must be a “Jeep”, this one is a ‘504’, this one is a Toyota Corolla 1975 Model, this one, is a Benz, this one is Rolls Royce, that’s how we categorize people and because of that, we now treat people based on the way we categorize them. If the person you’ve categorized in your mind as a Jeep steps up to you, there is a way most people look at them with despise, and they may have something.

Respecting people helps you to learn because there is something they have that you don’t have. When you learn to respect people, you gain knowledge. You categorize them and you behave to them based on you perception and because of that, you loose a gift God wants to bless you with. Every man is a blessing. There is a blessing that can come from them because they are created in the image of God. That’s why the Bible says I wish that no man will perish.

It is not what they are wearing or what they are driving that gives them value. What gives them value is that first of all, they are created in the image of God. Therefore, you should start to see people in the right light so that we can respect them, and you won’t lose your gifts. Someone said, it is easy and even ego boosting to respect people similar to us, but it is valuing people different from us that convinces the most noble on respect. Value people and give them the respect they deserve.

How you treat others is a reflection of your relationship with God. If you treat others shabbily and you don’t treat them well, you don’t have a good relationship with God. The Bible says that,”God is love”. If God fills your heart, love will feel your heart, and unconditional love will fill your heart - the love of God has been shared abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. You can’t be someone who studies and meditates on the word of God, who has a relationship with the word of God, who prays, who stays in the presence of God; yet not talk about God to others. There is no way that you get in the word of God that God will not rub on you; and when God rubs on you, when you talk to people, you will talk God to them.

Can you imagine if every time you annoy God, He says something, everybody will be dead?  So we need to know how to value people and it is based on our relationship with God. When you stop respecting people, take a look at yourself and ask what the kind of your relationship with God is? Do I have a good relationship with God? I am tired of Christians saying “Oh I am a Christian, and you cannot see it in the fruits.

I was ministering somewhere recently and God opened my eyes to something in 1John 2:15-17, that all that is in the world is a craving for physical things and craving for pleasure. You know why we are having a lot of divorces in the church, it’s because we are following the standards of the world and we are getting the results of the world. We are following Hollywood rather than ‘HOLY WORD.’ People will continue to get divorced in the church if we want to do it the way of the world. It is in the world that if you don’t respect me I won’t respect you. But it is different in the scriptures; it is different in the Bible because you are to present God to people at all times.

The reason some people are not married today is because they can’t respect people. It is difficult for them to respect people. If you can’t respect people now, when you are not in a relationship, when you get into a relationship, when the boundaries are much closer, you won’t respect the person. Your single time is a training ground for you. 

HOW TO RESPECT OTHERS

     1. LISTENING: One of the things you do in respecting people is listening. For someone to come and talk to you sometimes (I am not talking about gossip), they have shown you some respect. What you need to do is to give them some respect, at least listen to them regardless their state. Some people walk up to you, maybe in the church and before you know it, you are already moving away from them.

      2. YOUR SPEECHES AND ACTIONS: Our respects show up in our speeches and actions. You can look at somebody and right there they know you have disrespected them, especially women know how to do that a lot. They look at somebody from head to toe and quickly size up their shoes and dresses.

      3. BE CONSIDERATE: One of the ways you can respect people is to be considerate to them. So many people are not considerate. You need to get to a point were you put yourself in their shoes, where you consider the other person before yourself. In Nigeria, it is difficult for most people to be considerate because they think something will finish. When you are driving on the highway, you will notice this. If we were to queue up here now to receive some things, you will see how some people will push others and disrespect them, because they think it will finish. What if you don’t get? It is not the end of life. What we are sharing doesn’t define your life.

     4. AVOID ASSUMPTION: Don’t assume. So many of us assume things. When you see someone in a situation you just start to assume or when people tell you something, you start to make assumptions. ‘This guy must be a sinner that is why this has happened to him.’  And based on that, you begin to judge them. So many people judge others to defend God. Even if somebody sins, yes they have committed fornication, theft, and so on; then you now judge them because you say ‘I am the holy one, I am representing God.’ Thereby judging others to defend God. Even God did not judge them. There is His God’s love saying, ‘I know it was a mistake, but you can come back.’

Character is like an aroma, it will draw people to you, because people like people who respect people. Many people lack simple courtesy or manners. For instance, ‘excuse me’, ‘thank you’, ‘sorry.’ This is common to men than women. Therefore, men must learn to be able to say, ‘I am sorry’ when he is wrong. Some people always think they are right, though this happens among both sexes.

     5. LET HIS OR HER OPINION COUNT: If you are dating someone and he does not think that you should have an opinion, he is disrespecting you, he is disrespecting your parents that sent you to school, that spent money on you to go and learn how to think, saying that they have wasted their money. Also, He is disrespecting God because you read from the word of God and the Word of God gives you wisdom. He is telling you that the wisdom you are taking from God is no wisdom. There are some things we do of which we don’t know their implications. So, if you are in a relationship with someone who doesn’t think your opinion counts, break the relationship today, because it is not going to change. Some people believe that marriage is a rehabilitation centre. When I get married to him, he will change or I will change him (because you are the Holy Ghost?).Marriage is not a rehabilitation centre, if he has not changed now, he won’t change; it will take the Holy Ghost to spin him or her around and bring a change to his or her life.

Therefore, you need to make a conscious effort to respect others. Respecting people doesn’t just fall on you, it is always by choice, and line upon line, precept upon precept, and the practice makes the perfect. If you do it over and over and over again, it will become part of your nature; then everybody who comes to you will be duly respected. You will give them the value that God places on them. Do you know what it means to value people the way God values them? It is only God that can bring you to do so. That’s why the way you value people, is a reflection of your relationship with God.

A husband or a wife who had an extra marital affair (outside marriage); such is disrespecting his or her spouse. People will listen to you easily and cooperate with you easily if you respect them. Because everybody likes to be treated like a Queen or King. You won’t need so much energy or so much effort to get their attention when needed.

If you have a friend and you relate always, let it be such that when you ask the person out, she doesn’t has to reconsider you request. You realize at a point in your friendship that, perhaps you are being led by the Holy Spirit; day in day out, when that guy asks you out, you know already. Some people say ‘I want to go and pray about it.’ Most people never prayed about it, they will rejoice about it. When you ask someone out, some people have doubts about you because of the things you have done.

If you place value on people, you won’t have a lot of conflicts with them. An often time, what causes conflicts is due to different opinions. So many people fight in their relationships simply because of disrespect, someone’s opinions are not being heard or a character issue of wanting to be first rather than preferring the other to yourself.

Never make any commitment to anyone in order to get to him or her, not even to date him or her, if they don’t show you respect. If they do not respect you, don’t commit to them. The thing about respect is this, when people are respecting you, you may not know, but when they disrespect you, you know. For instance, it becomes second place for you to say “thank you, excuse me, and so on. But, if I rush through the door and hit you, I’m sure you will look and say, “Who is this guy?” Especially, if it is a lady “wow, no manners!” therefore, it is normal to us to know and quickly observe when the wrong things happen to us.

THINGS THAT AFFECT SHOWING RESPECT TO OTHERS

There are two things that affect respect, they are:

    1.OUR WORDS

      2.OUR ACTIONS

Sometimes when you correct people, you need to watch what you tell them and your actions. Though they have done something wrong, but you can still disrespect them. The truth is, it is not about being right, but it’s about doing the right thing all the time. Even when somebody has done something wrong, if you need to correct them, you need to correct in love properly.

Proverbs 15:2 (Amplified Bible) says, “The tongue of the wise utters knowledge rightly, but the mouth of the self confident fool, pours out folly.”

Self confidence; you are sure you know it. 1 Corinthians 13 says “...knowledge puffs up...” You are sure you are right but the Bible says, ‘The mouth of the self confident fool pours out folly; but the tongue of the wise utters knowledge rightly.’ So, even though someone may be wrong, it doesn’t give you the right to disrespect them.

Ephesians 4:29 says, “Don’t use foul or abusive language; let everything you say be good and helpful so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them.”

(The Message Bible) “Watch the way you talk...” (Even when you are angry, when someone upsets you, when you are right).

Let nothing foul or dirty come out from your mouth. Say only what helps, each word is a gift.

Some people when someone has done wrong, they will now bury them more. Yes the guy is down; you don’t need to dip him further down.

Colossians 4:6 says, “Let our words be seasoned with salt...” What does seasoning do? It adds flavour to food, preserves food, heals open sores, comforts and gives healing. Seasoning will add flavour. Let what you say add flavour irrespective of what happens.

From the story we read at the beginning, what David said added flavour to that guy’s life, else he would have died. He also preserved his life and this brought healing to his sores. We should ensure that as we treat people, one of the major things that we need to work on is our mouth because we use it a lot to disrespect people.

Proverbs 10:11 (The Message Bible) says, “The mouth of a good person is a deep life giving well, but the mouth of the wicked is a dark cave of abuse.”

As you go out today, make it a conscious effort to say, ‘I see God on people; they are created in the image of God. I am not going to despise the image of God, no matter what the situation is.’ And in doing that, you will see that when your gift comes to you, you will treat your gift the way God wants you to treat it.

God bless you.