Fighting for the Relationship

One of the things that I am learning is that when it comes to significant relationships, particularly dear friends and family members, if you want these relationships to survive, you have to learn to fight for them. A lot of times when it comes to relationships and people we love, we tend to let disagreements, conflict, and even distance, allow us to drift away from certain people, who at one time we were very, very close to. 

What I am learning is that, if a person and that relationship means enough to you, you can't afford to just "go with the flow."  You can't just allow it to dissipate and disintegrate. You have to fight! I believe this is an issue in many marriages. When things get rocky with their spouse (and they inevitably do), people just tend to give up and give in to the emotions and feelings at the time. This is not the will of God. Once you've made those vows to your spouse and to God, you literally have to fight for the marriage. However, this principle isn't just applicable to marriage, but all relationships that we deem worthy of maintaining.

I believe that this same principle applies to our relationship with God. There are times where, if the relationship is going to be all that God has ordained it to be, we have to fight for it. That's why the Scripture says to "fight the good fight of faith" (1Timothy 6). Too many times, even with our relationship with God, we tend to just "go with the flow." We don't have a sense of urgency and deliberation to our pursuit of God. I hear several people these days claim to be Christians, but I wonder if they're really "seeking His Face" (Psalm 27). The Scripture says in the fourth chapter of Hebrews that we need to "labor to enter into His rest." 

Then, when times get rough, a lot of times instead of seeking the Lord even more diligently, we let circumstances and situations take us away from God. We allow our feelings to overwhelm our spirit. It is at these times that we have to Fight. We have to fight for our faith. We have to fight for our praise. We have to fight to pray. We have to fight to serve. We have to cultivate a mentality that says, I'm not going to just lie down when the Enemy attacks, I'm going to fight so that the Divine will of God may be manifested in my life.

The motivation for this fight should grow out of the fact that Jesus fought to have a relationship with us. It would have been "extremely convenient" for the Father to allow us to simply go to Hell. But He loves humanity too much for that. Jehovah paid the price of sending His Only Begotten Son to the earth to die for the sins of the world (John 3). Then think of what Jesus had to fight through in order to serve as the Savior of the world, just so that humanity could be redeemed back to the Father. The Bible says He came unto His own and His own received Him not (John 1). So He had to experience rejection. Then He had to experience extreme ridicule and persecution from the Pharisees and Sadducees, as well as scrutiny from His own family members (John 7). Then, before He was crucified, He was in such agony that He was sweating blood (Luke 22). And let's not even mention the agony, brutality and unimaginable suffering that He experienced in Bearing the Cross. Jesus fought to save humanity from our sins! And He did it for us! 

Therefore, if Jesus can fight in order that we might have an eternal relationship with Him, we must learn to fight through the pain, fight through the disappointment, fight through the frustration, fight through the temptation, fight through the flesh, fight through the fear. Saints, now is the time to fight for our relationship with God.