Created In His Image
I just checked, and a search on Amazon for “Improving” and “Relationships,” brings over 10,000 results! Apparently, there’s quite a market for people looking to improve their relationships.
We want to be happy in our marriages and families, our work relationships, our friendships, and our church families. And while there are well-written and helpful books out there, we hold a book, the Bible, that is the best place to start. It’s in God’s word that we learn why these relationships exist, what our responsibilities are, and why it’s in our best interest to do the hard work of putting our best effort into them.
Let’s go all the way back to creation - the first man. When God created Adam, after the heavens and the earth, after the plants and animals, He said something quite stunning: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Genesis 1:26). God made man different from the animals and gave him rule over them. Then, God brought all the animals to Adam, and it became clear that they could not satisfy Adam’s need for a relationship with a being like him. So, from Adam, God formed Eve, a woman, to be Adam’s wife. Thus God made man to thrive in relationships, and God made relationships for man.
After Adam and Eve sinned and were cast from the garden, they went on to have children, introducing the relationship of family. As the families went out into the world, communities were born, and governments established. From Abraham, God chose one earthly family to be His chosen people, His children, His kingdom. And on the day of Pentecost when God’s plan to redeem all nations was revealed, the church, the spiritual family of God, was established.
Our earthly relationships teach us about God’s nature and wisdom. Having earthly fathers and mothers introduces us to the idea of protection and authority, of compassion and unconditional love. In brothers and sisters, we learn of loyalty and tolerance and a family bond. Kings and governments also teach us of authority and protection. And while earthly kingdoms are almost without exception a disappointment, imagine life in a kingdom, as God intends, where the King loves and provides for the citizens, and they in turn honor and obey Him.
God has always given laws to govern these relationships. Adam was to cleave to his wife. The law of Moses governed parental authority and marital purity. It instructed the Israelites on how to treat their neighbor, their enemy, and the surrounding nations. Jesus spoke of our relationships in The Sermon on the Mount, telling us to consider not only our actions, but also our hearts and thoughts. The apostles instructed the early church in how to treat each other and about our behavior as seen by our unbelieving neighbors. There is law as to who God wants to lead in His church and how we relate to our leaders.
One thing to stress here is that God’s laws are always for man’s good. In Deuteronomy 6:24, the Israelites are poised and ready to enter the Promised Land. Moses reinforces God’s law: “And the LORD commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the LORD our God, for our good always, that He might preserve us alive, as we are this day.” He reminds them In Deuteronomy 4:5-8 that the nations around them would be watching, “who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’”
God gives laws to establish His holiness and for our well being. We need to remember this because sometimes the laws that govern our relationships are particularly tough to obey. It wasn’t easy to work hard to cultivate your field, and then let some of the grain remain in the field for the poor. It wasn’t easy to relieve the debt that you were owed on the seventh year. It’s not easy to forgive seventy times seven times in a day. It’s difficult to pay taxes to a corrupt government. And the true blessings of marriage are made possible only by the law of the sanctity of its permanence, making for some very difficult choices when we have failed in our marriages, yet are determined to follow what God has declared in His law.
Consider some of the relationships God has created for us - how they help us to be faithful, how they make life better, and why we fail? Marriage, for example, teaches us the power of faithful, selfless love. Marriage to a believer gives us a fellow heir to work with, hand-in-hand, on life’s journey. It gives us security and companionship. The weaknesses in our marriages are due to our (human) selfishness, neglect, or unwillingness to yield, and our sexual impurity.
Governments were set in place by God. They are for our protection. In the United States, our government allows us the right to assemble and worship without interference. We have laws that provide for public and personal safety. All the negative elements of government, from corruption to cruelty, are at the hands of sinful, rebellious men.
One relationship inherent to a faithful life in Christ is our bond to our Christian brothers and sisters. I can be a faithful Christian without being a wife, mother, or sister in a physical family. However in 1 Corinthians 12:12-31, Paul says we have been baptized into one body, the body of Christ, and we are all individually members of it. My obedience to Christ makes all other believers my family.
There’s a learning curve in knowing how to relate in this body. Paul explains that we may be tempted to think too little of ourselves and pull back from responsibility. Or we may think too highly of ourselves and neglect the value of those we think are insignificant. But Paul reminds us that God arranged the members in the body “as He chose” and that we must function as one.
A club forms when people who have a common interest join together and enjoy that special bond. They write their own rules, and if you don’t like them, or don’t fit in, you just find and join another club. A body is different. All the members of the body are permanently joined and must work together to survive and thrive. Neglecting or harming any one member brings pain or loss to the entire body. In a world where we struggle to find a place to belong, what a blessing that God made us, in our weakness and frailty, a valuable and necessary part of Christ’s body.
Think of the wonder of a church that is following Christ as its head and all its members acting as one body. A group of people, with little in common, other than a determination to serve the Lord, functioning in love as a body - working together, suffering together, protecting each other, indeed, making known the manifold wisdom of God. The troubles we may have seen in churches are often the doings of members seeking their own, rather than the good of the body or the will of the Lord.
In the gospel of John, Jesus says he is giving us a new commandment to love one another as He has loved us: “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Relationships will improve as Christians will bring Christ’s love into them.
“When I look at Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have set in place,what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You care for him?” (Psalm 8:3-4). God, in His great wisdom, created us to need each other. And He gave us relationships - families, communities, and local churches to help us navigate life on earth and serve Him. In this series of articles, we will look at some specific ways we can work to be our best in those relationships.