{"id":7217,"date":"2025-05-27T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-27T01:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/satchurch.lv\/?p=7217"},"modified":"2015-05-01T01:09:15","modified_gmt":"2015-04-30T22:09:15","slug":"how-can-relationships-people-help-us-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/satchurch.lv\/en\/how-can-relationships-people-help-us-change\/","title":{"rendered":"How can our relationships with other people help us change?"},"content":{"rendered":"Welcome, dear children of God, to \u201eDaily Word for Spiritual Edification\u201d! I pray for the grace of God to fill your life today.\r\n\r\nYesterday we talked about the vertical relationships \u2013 between God and men. We saw that it is important to build our relationships with God on His conditions and then a person\u2019s life is changed and exalted.\r\n\r\nToday I would like to talk about the horizontal relationships \u2013 our relationships with people. How can our relationships with other people help us change? Many people think that in order to grow in God it is enough to have close relationships with God. That kind of thinking is actually erroneous! God and you \u2013 it is good and important. But God has placed you in a family and church (His Body) so that the relationships with other people can facilitate your spiritual growth and maturity.\r\n\r\nAll people need change; we help each other through relationships that we are involved. God alone does not need to change; all the people, on the other side, desperately need to change. We need each other and we help each other to change. If we do not understand it and lose sight of it, then it will be hard for us to build any relationships.\r\n\r\nMany people feel lonely and are not able to make friends with other people, because they are not willing to change. Usually they don\u2019t have friends because they prefer to shrink into themselves and live a secluded life instead of allowing the relationships and contacts to affect their lifestyle and to change them.\r\n\r\nOur God is the God of relationships; and He has created us in His image and according to His likeness. God is One, but He is also triune: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit:\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n<h6>\u00a0\u00abAnd there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one\u00bb\u00a0(1 John, 5:8).<\/h6>\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nThe Bible says that Father, Son (the Word) and the Spirit have relationships and they are one. There are no contradictions in their witness. The Word of God is the witness of the Holy Spirit and the witness of God the Father. In the very beginning of the Bible we can see how God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit acted in unity:\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n<h6>\u00abThen God said, \u201cLet Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness\u00bb\u00a0(Genesis, 1: 26\u0430).<\/h6>\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nSo, God is the God of relationships and He has created us in His image and according to His likeness so that we would be the people of relationships. The relationships between people can be divided into several categories:\r\n\r\n<strong><u>*\u00a0The relationships between friends.<\/u><\/strong>\r\n\r\nGod desires to change us through our friendship with other people. That is why it says in the Bible:\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n<h6>\u00a0\u00abAs iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend\u00bb\u00a0(Proverbs, 27: 17).<\/h6>\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nIf you do not understanding this truth, you will easily get offended when God will start smoothing some rough places in your character and life through your friends. If you do not understand it your friendships my fall apart due to different disagreements and you will again and again find yourself seeking for new friends and relationships. You must understand the goal of relationships, including friendship. Relationships is God\u2019s instrument fro changing us and our character. Every relationship requires both parties to change; otherwise these relationships will be weak and fleeting. Every relationship implies mutual investments. In every relationship both parties must change, sacrifice and give in.\r\n\r\nTalking about friendship, I must point out that it is important to build relationships with people that have the right values in life, because bad company corrupts:\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n<h6>\u00a0\u00abDo not be deceived: \u201cEvil company corrupts good habits\u201d\u00bb\u00a0(1 Corinthians, 15:33).<\/h6>\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nI wish you God\u2019s abundant blessings!\r\n\r\nTill tomorrow!\r\n\r\nPastor Rufus Ajiboye","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All people need change; we help each other through relationships that we are involved. God alone does not need to change; all the people, on the other side, desperately need to change. We need each other and we help each other to change. If we do not understand it and lose sight of it, then it will be hard for us to build any relationships.","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33247,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-word"],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":12,"label":"Daily Word"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/satchurch.lv\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/pexels-photo-7149181-1024x617.jpeg",1024,617,true],"author_info":{"display_name":"Pastor Rufus Ajiboye","author_link":"https:\/\/satchurch.lv\/en\/author\/rufus-ajiboye\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":12,"name":"Daily Word","slug":"daily-word","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":12,"taxonomy":"category","description":"Daily word for spiritual strength","parent":0,"count":650,"filter":"raw","term_order":"0","cat_ID":12,"category_count":650,"category_description":"Daily word for spiritual strength","cat_name":"Daily Word","category_nicename":"daily-word","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/satchurch.lv\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/satchurch.lv\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/satchurch.lv\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/satchurch.lv\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/satchurch.lv\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7217"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/satchurch.lv\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39456,"href":"https:\/\/satchurch.lv\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7217\/revisions\/39456"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/satchurch.lv\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/satchurch.lv\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/satchurch.lv\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/satchurch.lv\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}