It is good to remind ourselves that God created mankind primarily for relationships from which come eighty percent of life's satisfaction. To live meaningfully we need to be in meaningful relationships, without which life can be very empty and lonely.
If we don't know how to relate in healthy ways, we don't know how to live fully, and we can impair both our mental and physical health as a result. Or another way to put it: to fully live we need to fully love!
It helps us to remember that God himself is in relationship through the Trinity (God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit). Also, Jesus started the Christian movement with relationships: "He [Jesus] appointed twelve...that they might be with him." - Mark 3:14 (NIV). Furthermore, practically all of Christ's ministry was done in relationship with his twelve disciples.
As a Christian, our first need is to keep in a right relationship with God, which begins by accepting Jesus Christ as our personal Savior and Lord. Trying to live the Christian life without this is like trying to go east by traveling west.
We then need close, healthy relationships with people. Only then can we realize some of the deepest longings of the human heart. This doesn't mean that we are to be overdependent on others, codependent with them, or independent from them, but interdependent with them.
Furthermore, the degree of our mental health, emotional maturity, and spiritual well-being will be reflected in the health or otherwise of our close relationships. God's command to "love one another" is not a sentimental suggestion. It's an imperative.
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