Today’s New Covenant nugget is from Luke 6:12-13 (TPT)
Jesus went up into the high hills to spend the whole night in prayer to God. At daybreak He called together all of His followers and selected twelve from among them, and He appointed them to be His apostles.
Relationships mattered to Jesus! He prayed all night as He was considering who His inner circle of friends and co-laborers would be. One of the twelve apostles was Judas – Jesus put Judas in charge of the finances… He knew by the Spirit that Judas would later be tempted and that he would ultimately betray Him, but Jesus continued to love Judas, pour into Judas and serve Judas.
Some of the people that the Lord brings into our lives will eventually betray us, hurt us and use us, but we need to treat them the same way that Jesus treated Judas. Jesus mentored Judas, taught him, anointed him with power to perform miracles, Jesus trusted him with the money (even though He knew that Judas was stealing), Jesus loved on Judas, ministered to his needs and His last act towards Judas was to wash his feet!
Why would Jesus do this? Because He is a God of love! He genuinely loved Judas and He wanted to give Judas EVERY opportunity to choose a different path. Every relationship mattered to Jesus!
See the diamond in everybody, even those who you feel may eventually turn on you and hurt you… wash their feet, bless them, pour into them and love on them – as you do the Lord will work with you to bring inner healing their way – you see, hurting people hurt people. Hurting people are under spiritual attack… on a subconscious level, they do not know who to trust, they have been deceived by the enemy to fall into offense traps… and they are unable to discern good intentions and true loyalty. Those in your life that are broken may eventually turn on you, because that is what broken people do, but they deserve every chance to be healed from the inside out.
If, like Jesus, you love on hurting people, refuse to take their inappropriate, flesh driven actions personally, if you give them undeserved grace, and if you discern that your relationship struggles with them are actually caused by powers of darkness, and not flesh and blood, then you can use your authority in Christ to deal with the root, not the fruit. Dealing with relational challenges this way may not save every relationship, but it will save many. Jesus was not able to resolve things with Judas, but he did win over the other eleven disciples, their families, as well as many others. Relationships matter!
In His amazing love, Nick
