115 - Cultivating Love in Relationships: Biblical Guidance and Practical Tips

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This one is super crucial if you can actively listen to somebody. And then on top of that, take what they're saying and paraphrase it in such a way where you can speak it right back to them in a way that makes it feel like they were heard and understood. Do you know how impactful that is for people? Because a lot of times people will just talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. And you're just like, sure, okay.

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And they get done and they say, what do you think? And you weren't paying attention. But if you actively listen and you actually make a point about what they said, they feel heard, they feel understood, they feel listened to. Welcome to Motivate grind. Succeed.

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Almost done. Sign up for the email list so you're one of the first ones to know when that website gets dropped. All the links to everything will be down in this episode's description, so check that out for more information. And guys, in today's episode we are going to be exploring the topic of love and relationships. And obviously, we're going to be putting it through a biblical lens as we are currently in the Faith series.

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About halfway done, but we are still in the Faith series. So guys, with this episode we are going to be answering three important questions. Number one is how we can cultivate love in our relationships? Number two is what does the Bible say about the importance of love? And number three, what are some practical ways because, you know, fluff free guarantee, what are some practical ways to start incorporating love into our daily lives?

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So, guys, question number one how can we cultivate love in our relationships? It's important to understand and to know that love is a fundamental aspect of any healthy and thriving relationship. Thankfully, the Bible offers us valuable insights onto how we can cultivate such love. And one way is through selflessness. Oh, boy.

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Oh, boy. Wait till I get to the Bible verse. Y'all aren't going to like this one, but it's what the Bible says. Okay, so the apostle Paul, in his letter to the Philippians, writes in the Book of Philippians, chapter two, don't be selfish. Don't try to impress others.

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Be humble. Thinking of others better than yourself. Oh, no. I'm going to say that one more time for the people in the back. Philippians two, verse three, specifically in the New Living translation, do not be selfish, do not try to impress others.

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Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. You can just pause the episode right there and ponder on that. Let that verse marinate for a bit. Okay? What does this verse mean?

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Well, this verse is encouraging us to prioritize the needs and the well beings of our loved ones. Side point on this this only works if everybody does the same thing. This is where you can easily create imbalances in relationships. We're not here to talk about that in this episode, but just know if everybody is doing what this verse says, everybody in whatever relationship you are in is not being selfish. They are not trying to impress the other person.

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They are being humble, and they are thinking of the other person as better than themselves. If everybody in whatever relationship that it is, is doing that for each other, the relationship will flourish. If one person is putting in more effort than the other person is putting in, then naturally, that's where you get the imbalance. That's where one person feels like they're putting in a lot and the other person is just taking right. But again, that's a side point for another episode.

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But when we do this, when we do those four things, which again are be humble, think of others as better than yourself, not be selfish, and not try to impress other people. This creates and fosters an atmosphere of love and of care. Another biblical principle that you need to understand about love and relationships is the concept of forgiveness. In the Gospel of Matthew, jesus teaches the disciples about the importance of forgiving one another. He says in Matthew 614, for if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you.

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So by extending forgiveness in the same way that the Heavenly Father extended us forgiveness, we are now therefore creating room for love to flourish and for healing to take place within our relationships. Forgiveness is so critically important. Remember what I said in the past episode that grudges don't help you at all? It's being reiterated here again, it's not easy to hold a grudge. It's not easy to forgive.

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But in the long run, if you're playing the long game here, you're not trying to get some short term gratification. If you're really in it for the long haul, forgiveness is the way to go. We'll move on to the second question that I mentioned, and that is, what does the Bible say about the importance of love? Love holds immense significance in the Bible. In fact, it is often referred to as the greatest commandment.

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Didn't Jesus say, you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and all your mind? This is the first and greatest commandment. Whoa. A second is equally important. Love your neighbor as yourself.

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Oh, that's also in Matthew 22, by the way. What did we say earlier in Philippians? Think of others as better than yourself. Because here's the thing. You and I both know we are both some selfish people.

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So basically, what you would do for yourself, you should do for your neighbor, you should do for that other person. You should do for the person who did you wrong. Oh, people don't like that. People don't like that. But you should love your neighbor as yourself.

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See, this is what people like to pick and choose verses out of the Bible that they like to see. They like to hear. They're like, oh, that sounds good. That sound nice. I kind of like where this is going.

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And then you read a verse like Matthew 22 where it says, love your Matthew, chapter 22. And the verse is in there. It says, Love your neighbor as yourself. Whoa, hold on. Wait, hold on.

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God, you had me at love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul in mind. Okay, I could work with that. But love your neighbor. Yeah.

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Another thing that I want to talk about, because I'm going to leave that point there. I'm going to leave you out with a couple of hard hitting points. I'm just going to let you all sit and marinate on those things for a bit, right? I want to touch on the different types of love, right? Because the English language is kind of limited if you look at it when you compare it to how they spoke in the Bible, it's a lot more limited when we talk about love nowadays, naturally.

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And it's not wrong to think about, but we always think about physical, relational, sexual type of love. Typically when people talk about love and relationships in the Bible, though, there are multiple different types of love. So when we see that somebody loved somebody else, before we go jumping to any conclusions about anything, you have to understand the Bible has multiple different types of love. We're going to go through them real fast here. But just so you know, when you're reading the Bible, always ask yourself, what kind of love are they talking about here?

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So let's talk about the different kinds of love that there is. One type of love is agape love, which represents and means selfless and unconditional love. This is the kind of love that God has for us and calls for us to have for one another. Basically, the kind of love that covers everything, regardless of what the person did, regardless of what they said, regardless of what they said about your mama yesterday, you got to love that person. That's agape love.

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Then there is filio love. This one is signifying deep friendship and affection, right? This one is when you hear people say, like, man, I love that guy, man, you're talking about your best friend, man, I love that guy. That means I just filio that guy. I have a deep connection with them.

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I have connected with them on such a deep level of communication. Person has been there throughout so many years of my life. Maybe they were there through my tough times and everything. They know some of the demons that I'm battling and they're willing to pray with me about them and not spread my business like that kind of thing. That one, two, maybe three really good deep friends that you got.

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That's the filio. And then finally storage. Or storage as some people say. This one is the familial or the family type of love, right? Your mom, your dad, your sister, your brother, your cousin, your aunt, your uncle, your family, right?

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You love your family, right? That is the Thoraji love, right? Refers to the natural bond between family members. So there's three main types of love that are displayed in the Bible. So just as I said, this was a side point.

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But just let you all know when we talk about love here and this whole time that I'm talking about love, I'm not just talking about one type of love, I'm talking about the different kinds of love. Which is why when I was talking about before, how we can cultivate love in our relationships, this means for all of them, right? Whether you're in a romantic relationship with your significant other, whether you're in a friendship, whether you're talking about your family, it goes for everything, right? When you're in a romantic relationship, for example, you can't be selfish. You're working as a team here.

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When you're in your family, you can't be that selfish because again, it's just a bigger team there. When you're with your best friend, your friend, your ride or die, you can't be selfish. You're looking out for each other, right? So the rule set goes for all the different types of love. So as clarification just have to put that little pin in that.

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So with all that in mind, what are some practical ways that we can start to incorporate love into our daily life? Because love is not just a concept, right, but it's a principle that we need to live out every day. How do we know this? Because in the verse that aforementioned here where it talks about, especially in the Matthew 22 verse where it says to love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind. Let me say that again a little bit slower.

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Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind. Love is used as a verb there when it continues on. It says love your neighbor as yourself. That means it's something that we need to do.

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Love is used as a verb. Verb is an action meaning we need to do. This is not just something to think about and say that logically makes sense. This is something that we need to actually practice and do and exhibit in our daily lives. So that's why I'm saying what are some practical ways that we can do this?

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And I've got two main ones for you because I realize if I give you all like seven, eight, nine ways, you'll get some analysis paralysis. So I'm just going to give you all two ways here. And I want you all to just for homework pick one. Pick one and practice it. Way number one is by showing kindness and compassion.

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That's it. Just show kindness and compassion. It could be as simple as just hold a door open for somebody. It could be as simple as give someone a compliment. It could be as simple as genuinely meaning I'll pray for you.

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Genuinely meaning I'm thinking about you. Okay. Acts of kindness, acts of compassion. Doing something nice, something very simple. I mean literally, something as simple as just two people are walking up to a line or two people are walking up to going to the same spot and you say, oh no, you go first.

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Literally, that simple. That is an act of kindness. That is an act of compassion. That is an act of being selfless. I know.

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Super simple example. But you see it's still an example of being selfless because if you were selfish, you could have said, no, I'm just going to go into the line. I'm going to do what I'm going to do point blank. Done. That other person can wait.

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Being selfless. You let the other person go even if they weren't there first. You just let the other person go. You see they have a whole example. A, you have two or three items to check out at the store.

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You see someone coming up who's got a cart full. So what do you do? You let them go right on ahead. You obviously see that they're in a rush to get out somewhere. There's no open lanes.

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I mean what will it save? An extra 30, 45 seconds? Yeah. In the grand scheme of things that probably won't do much in terms of where they're trying to go. But just that act of being selfless will make that that probably will make that person's day.

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Even if it was 30 to 45 seconds. You saved them just that little act of kindness. It gave them a little bit of, oh, this person was so nice. Thank you for that. I appreciate that.

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You don't know what they're going through. Be selfless, be nice. Acts of kindness and compassion. Another practical step is to actively listen to the other person. This one is super crucial if you can actively listen to somebody and then on top of that, take what they're saying and paraphrase it in such a way where you can speak it right back to them in a way that makes it feel like they were heard and understood.

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Do you know how impactful that is for people, because a lot of times people will just talk, talk, talk, and you're just like, sure, okay. And they get done and they say, what do you think? And you weren't paying attention. But if you actively listen and you actually make a point about what they said, they feel heard, they feel understood, they feel listened to. What does the Bible have to say about this?

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James one nine, arguably probably one of my dad's favorite verses. You must be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. OOH, notice that? Y'all ever heard the saying, you have two ears and one mouth? Use them in that order.

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Quick to listen. You got two ears. Slow to speak because you got one mouth. And slow to become angry. That means try to understand where the person's coming from.

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Don't get defensive. And I know because this is something that I struggle with from time to time too, especially being a content creator. It's very easy to get defensive when you start getting certain kinds of comments. But sometimes you just got to understand some people are coming from a different perspective, as well as knowing that, hey, this person is leaving a comment. Maybe they are just trying to seek some kind of understanding instead of seeing it as I need to get defensive and defend what I'm saying.

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Maybe they're just trying to get some understanding. Who knows? Slow to become angry. That way. You could also think a lot more logical, a lot more rational, and not let your emotions get too involved into things and you start making a decision you'd regret later.

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So that's where I'll leave you guys with again, I'll repeat them real quick, practical way. Number one, show some kindness, show some compassion. And number two, actively listen, guys, that's what I have for you this week. But before we end off again, we do have some ending notes and reminders here, as always. Remember, guys, I'm always accepting questions for the show via voicemail.

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Guys, that's what I have for you this week. Thank you so much for listening. But before you go, don't forget if you like what you hear, leave a rating and a review as it really does help to go a long way. And it tells me that I am impacting lives in a positive, positive way. Guys, it's also an email list.

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You'll find all the show notes there as well. If you want to find more information, take care of yourselves and I will see you all next time.