Relationships

When I say to the wicked, “You shall surely die,” and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life, that same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at your hand. Yet, if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered your soul. Again, when a righteous man turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he shall die; because you did not give him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteousness which he has done shall not be remembered; but his blood I will require at your hand. Nevertheless if you warn the righteous man that the righteous should not sin, and he does not sin, he shall surely live because he took warning; also you will have delivered your soul.

Ezekiel 3:18-21

Life is a set of relationships not a set of transactions.

Relationships provide an ongoing set of transactions and influence your life much more than any one transaction could. Before you were aware of relationships, you were receiving food, comfort and other essential transactions through the form of relationships. Through a well developed relationship, you know when to give a stern warning to someone who is walking towards wickedness or a word of encouragement to someone who is turning towards righteousness. Relationships help you determine what kind of transactions a person might need. Also because relationships are not isolated from each other, a relationship interaction will cause ripples into other relationships. Your interactions in one relationship may very well save a life in a relationship you don’t even know about. 

Worship God how He wants to be worshiped. 

God wants a relationship from you rather than a transaction. Salvation isn’t simply a transaction, exchanging your unrighteousness for God’s righteousness, it’s the beginning of a relationship. In 1 Samuel 13, King Saul makes an offering himself when only priests are supposed to do so. In doing so, he turns a holy relationship into a transaction. God wants a relationship with you, not a transaction of two hours on Sunday and one hour on Wednesday night. A relationship with God will lead you to spending time with Him, and a positive relationship with God will affect your other relationships just as one interpersonal relationship affects your other interpersonal relationships. Make life about relationships not transactions as you see your good relationships build into other relationships.

Do the work God has for you.

When Satan tempts Jesus to turn stones into bread, he is tempting Jesus to make work easy. After the fall, man had to till the ground to produce wheat to make bread. So in a way men and women are turning rocks into bread when they go to work to provide fruit from the earth. Turning rocks into bread could be vernacular for doing work in a farming cultural context. Satan is tempting Jesus to fulfill His job through a transaction instead of a relationship.

As humans, we have a relationship with the ground. We are to build into the world we have been given to together to bring glory to God. Work is a relationship we have with the earth. Although the curse of the fall has added sweat to the nature of work, work is still a relationship that gives us and our job meaning. Our relationship with our work plays into our relationship with God as we do everything to the glory of God. We are to strive to have a relationship with righteousness and avoid a relationship with wickedness.