Relationship Prosperity Starts With Your Walk in the Spirit

When a relationship is hard, the plan seems obvious: the other person needs to change first. Until they do, you hold back patience, forgiveness, and kindness and wait to see what they'll do. That hands your choices to someone else. Are you still waiting for them to go first?

God's abundance reaches every level of your life: spiritual, mental, emotional, physical, and relational. Your marriage, your children, your coworkers, and your friends are part of that picture. You cannot make another person like you. You can decide how you will respond to them, and that decision starts with the condition of your own heart.

Where does relationship poverty begin?

It starts with your own heart. Relationship poverty shows up as offense, bitterness, criticism, and unforgiveness, and in the worst cases it looks like one broken relationship after another. Some relationships build you up. Others drain you until there's nothing left. When the same broken patterns keep showing up, the honest question is whether you are doing your part. Are you drawing on the Spirit of God, or reacting from the flesh?

Frustration rarely stays where it starts. A person who is unhappy at work can carry that anger home, and the spouse and children take the hit. A bad day can explain your mood. It does not have to choose your response. Look at what you're carrying before you hand it to the people closest to you.

Few people choose to spend time with someone cranky, critical, or always gloomy. People gravitate toward someone positive and life-giving, and that can be you. Walking in the Spirit shows up in your marriage, your home, and your workplace, and people who bring faith and goodwill to their jobs tend to find more opportunities. Relationship prosperity is not a side issue. It's one of the good things God wants for you.

What does James 3 say about the roots of conflict?

Bitterness and self-seeking are not wisdom. They produce confusion, not peace. How you treat people has everything to do with the openings you give to the demonic in your life. Conflict doesn't stay small. It leaves its mark on every area of life. Unhealed bitterness spreads from your emotions into your thinking, and from there into how you treat your spouse, your kids, and the people you work with. James draws the line clearly:

“For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy.” (James 3:16-17, NKJV)

Use that passage as a test. Is your conduct peaceable, gentle, and willing to yield? Or are you insisting on winning, replaying every offense, and waiting for a chance to strike back? You may have a fair complaint about someone else. You still have to ask what you are adding to the situation.

Can you love people who hurt you before they change?

Jesus gave one of the hardest commands in the Bible. You cannot make someone like you or force them to respond with love. Your responsibility is your own heart and your own conduct.

It is impossible in the flesh. It is not impossible for someone who has been born again. You have been given the ability to choose the Spirit's way. You can choose patience when you would rather snap back. You can pause, count to ten or twenty, and bring your emotions under the control of the Holy Spirit. Then you can let love, patience, and kindness flow.

Relationships are a lot like plants. They need water, sunlight, and nutrients, and in the Spirit that means your forgiveness and a heart that is not bitter. Prayer moves you past bitterness. Hating someone is hard when you are praying for that person. When you pray, unforgiveness loses its grip, and you start living on the level of the Spirit instead of the flesh. Here is what Jesus said:

“But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” (Matthew 5:44-45, NKJV)

How does unforgiveness shut you out of God's abundance?

You will not experience all of God's abundance while bitterness, unforgiveness, and anger have a place in your heart. You may not experience any of God's goodness, because you have closed the door. The fallout can reach well past the relationship itself. Every evil thing can include sickness, financial loss, and divorce. Forgiveness, then, is not a feeling you wait for. It's a decision you act on.

Think about what God did. He saw exactly what was done to you. He still loved the one who did it, and He went to the cross for that person too. He forgave them, and He forgave you. The love of God has already been poured into your heart by the Holy Spirit, so you have what it takes to love them.

Walk in love. Scripture calls loving your neighbor as yourself a royal law. Your relationship with yourself also shapes your relationship with others. If you're frustrated and have no peace, you'll struggle to give peace to anyone else. Scripture puts it this way:

“If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself,’ you do well.” (James 2:8, NKJV)

Then look at what liberty is for:

“For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.” (Galatians 5:13, NKJV)

What can you choose today?

You don't have to wait until the other person changes, or until your week gets easier. You can choose love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, and self-control right now. The choice is available in the middle of a hard marriage, a difficult child, or a tense day at work.

A person who used to be volatile, who yelled and flew off the handle, can choose the Spirit's way and stop. A marriage can grow together because of that choice.

When you walk in love, good things have a way of finding you. Good relationships can open doors of opportunity. When people like you, good things seem to find you, and when you like people, you bless them. For more on loving people who are hard to love, read How to Love Difficult People Without Losing Yourself. Keep choosing that path, one response at a time.

You cannot make the other person change. You can decide whether your next response comes from the flesh or from the Spirit of God.

Go deeper: watch Free Indeed, Episode 148 on YouTube.