(Divine Pointer To Living Right With Others)

Every living individual relates. Our relationship with others is determined by our relationship with our maker. If our God-ward relationship is ‘sour’ and wrong; it will practically affect our man-ward relationship. What this means, is that, that godliness, fear of God, being led by the Holy Spirit will ultimately enable good relationship with others.
Therefore, the God-ward determines the man-ward.

What Is A Good Relationship?
Certain factors including fellowship, love and trust, promote and define good relationship. Knowing about God or someone is not enough to bring about good relationship. But such knowledge must go beyond head knowledge to experiential knowledge. Our relationship with God must be ‘lived out’ and cultivated.

What We Need To Know About God
• God is the first to initiate the love life with man. 1John 4:10.
• God is the centre of man’s existence, Acts 7:24-28.
• We must walk with God in living faith, Hebrew 11:6.
Our walk with God must be by faith: 2 Corinthians 5:7: “The just shall live by faith” (cf: Romans 1:17, Galatians 3:11). What is faith? Hebrews 11:1; shows that faith is a living spiritual antidote for survival. If our faith is dead or weak we will find life difficult to progress.

What You Need To Know About Living Faith
• Our faith must go beyond the level of faith that demons have. James 2:19
• Our response to God must not be subject to circumstances and traditions and rudiments of men. This can be referred to as: circumstantial faith. Mark 7:13
• Faith is risk; it is total leaning and absolute dependence on God, even when it looks not practical by human assessment. Yes! It may appear unrealistic, yet with the eye of faith you can see: hope in hopelessness; peace in crises; and good in bad situation — you must learn to doubt your doubts. With faith you will see health in sickness; fruitfulness in bareness.
This Can Be Achieved Through The Following:
• Positive confession, Romans 10:8-10, Luke 4:32.
• Hearing from God and hearing God’s word, Rom 10:17; Heb 4:12.
• Submitting to God’s will, Luke 1: 38, Col. 3:16.
• Putting your gift to work, 1Corinth 12:1-11.

Be Honest In Dealing With Others
In Leviticus 19:11-13; God commanded the Israelites: “You shall not steal, nor deal falsely, nor lie to one another. And you shall not swear by my name falsely, nor shall you profane the name of your God: I am the Lord. You shall not cheat your neighbour, nor rob him. The wages of him who is hired shall not remain with you all night until morning.”

Here you discover a repetition of what God told Moses in Exodus 20:15. This command is another important foundation in human relation. This gives an exclusive right to personal property. Certain individual by creation are entrusted with certain possessions, and other people or governments are not permitted to take that property without proper legal process and permission. This negates the forcefully taking of something that another person owns either because you are more powerful, more financially influential or your position gives you a sort of immunity or impunity. Apostle Paul in Ephesians 4:28 declares: “Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labour, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need.”

Stealing can be linked with dealing falsely: sometimes in an attempt to steal people deal deceptively with others, and to cover their deception and fraud they swear falsely even in the court of law. The ‘oath’ to some means nothing, but a mere judiciary procedure. Swearing falsely and being unfaithful to one’s oath was forbidden under the third commandment (Exodus 20:7), against taking God’s name in vain. Again, in context, it probably has the idea of swearing oaths to deceive others in taking money from them. Stealing was equivalent to cheating your neighbour. To cheat — to take money from others with some form of deception (Yahoo-yahoo, 419); is the same as to rob him. Cheating is a form of robbery or stealing, and God is against it.

Furthermore, God warned against keeping the wages of him who is hired. It shall not remain with you: God commands the prompt payment of those who are hired. When people are hired and not paid, it is not only a sin against those hired but it is also a sin against God and social wellbeing. This command is an injunction to those who delay salaries intentionally, those who feed fat and fail to give the slim wages to the poor, those who invest other people’s salaries to create flimsy excuses just to make gain at the pain of others and their families. By this divine command, salaries are supposed to be paid promptly and holding or hurdling wages is evil to God and humanity.

Verses 14, God commanded: “You shall not curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling block before the blind, but shall fear your God: I am the Lord.
• You shall not curse the deaf: This law can be described as ‘protective law for the physically challenged and the vulnerable in the society. God commanded Israel not to mistreat those with physical disabilities. Cursing the deaf is cruel because they cannot hear your curse, though others can. To put a stumbling block before the blind is in insult to his maker. To do this means to express a high level of human cruelty. The law was not only made to protect the physically challenged, but to instill in man true humanity expressed in basic kindness among the people of Israel. An accurate and revealing measure of our humanity is how we treat the weak and unfortunate. Disability is not a curse.

Verses 15-16: “You shall do no injustice in judgment. You shall not be partial to the poor, nor honour the person of the mighty. In righteousness you shall judge your neighbour. You shall not go about as a talebearer among your people; nor shall you take a stand against the life of your neighbour: I am the Lord. The judiciary system of the nation of Israel must not be unjust, this was a command to judges and magistrates. Exodus 21-23 gives many principles to the judges of ancient Israel for making their legal decisions. Yet all was based on the fundamental responsibility to do no injustice in judgment. In John 7:24 our Lord Jesus repeated this fundamental truth when he said: “Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment. To pity the poor or to honour the rich were both at the same weigh in the judicial scale.

Furthermore, the Israelites were warned: “You shall not go about as a talebearer among your people.” A talebearer is essentially a gossip, someone who cannot mind their own business (1 Thessalonians 4:11). They take great pleasure in talking about the lives of other people and spreading unfounded stories. Words are powerful once they are given, they cannot be taken back. Gossip could be likened to murder or taking a stand against the life of your neighbour: God commands us to promote and protect the lives of those around us and not to destroy it with our lips.

This brings us to: “You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your neighbour, and not bear sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbour as yourself: I am the Lord.” Love is commanded to be more practical, which should come from the heart. It is easy to speak love, easy to sing love, easy to write love and to post love, but true love demanded by God must be visible and beneficial. When we love we will not support evil but rebuke evil with a good sense of love. True love is not vengeful. These teach us what is expected in interpersonal relationships.
This can be better and briefly summarised as keys to good relationship.
• Don’t lie.
• Don’t deal deceptively or falsely with others.
• Don’t steal.
• Don’t swear.
• Don’t play with spiritual things or joke with holy things.
• Don’t defraud (419, Yahoo-yahoo).
• Don’t rob others— forcefully taking what is not yours.
• Don’t keep people’s entitlement more than expected.
• Don’t take advantage of other person’s handicap or weakness.
• Don’t give unrighteous judgment.
• Don’t favour the poor to do unrighteousness.
• Don’t honour the rich to do unrighteousness.
• Don’t be a gossip or a talebearer.
• Don’t act in a way that will truncate the good of others.
• Don’t hate in your heart.
• Don’t share in the sin of others.
• Don’t pay back evil for evil.
God expects that in life, we should intentionally chose to live right and relate well with those around us.
• Venerable Stephen Wolemonwu is the Rector,