Perhaps the best counsel on how to have good and meaningful relationships comes from a letter written 1,967 years ago.
It was written to the Roman church by the apostle Paul, who delivers hard-hitting directives about how to live and love. I’ve gathered his points from Chapter 12 (NLT) into a Divine Dozen for Good Relationships. If you’d like to evaluate yourself on how well you’re currently doing with these 12 from Romans 12, you can take a self-assessment here.
Don’t rush through them. Use them as a time to search your heart.
A Divine Dozen for Good and Meaningful Relationships
- Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. 12:9
- Love each other with genuine affection and take delight in honoring each other. 12:10
- Don’t think you are better than you really are. 12:3
- Always be eager to practice hospitality. 12:13
- Bless those who persecute you. Don’t curse them; pray that God will bless them. 12:14
- Be happy with those who are happy, and weep with those who weep. 12:15
- Live in harmony with each other. 12:16
- Don’t be too proud to enjoy the company of ordinary people. 12:16
- And don’t think you know it all! 12:16
- Never pay back evil with more evil. Do things in such a way that everyone can see you are honorable. 12:17
- Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone. 12:18
- Don’t let evil conquer you, but conquer evil by doing good. 12:21
Okay, you may be thinking, I really do want to love others. But I admit to pretending to love some people. And I have a really hard time honoring some people. Furthermore, I can’t say that I’ve ever blessed someone who is oppressing me.
In fact, you ask, is there anyone who can live and love in the ways described in Romans 12?
Of course, you already know the answer.
Jesus.
Therefore, Paul starts Chapter 12 by explaining the “how” so that Jesus followers can live and love like Jesus.
Changing How You Live and Love Means Changing How You Think
Here’s the key to living and loving that Paul shares in Romans 12:2: [L]et God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think” (NLT) or “be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (ESV).
In other words, living and loving like Jesus requires us to get rid of our natural way of thinking, which is based in the desire to put ourselves first. Instead, as followers of Jesus, we are now to think of ourselves as members of one family, the family of God, and agree to live as a member of that family. We must agree to learn to think in an entirely new way so that we can live in an entirely new way.
Here’s how N. T. Wright describes the renewal of mind necessary to live and love like Jesus:
“Christian living never begins with a set of rules, though it contains them as it goes forwards. It begins in the glad self-offering of one’s whole self to the God whose mercy has come all the way to meet us in our rebellion, sin and death. Within that, it involves the renewal of the mind so that we are enabled both to think straight, instead of the twisted thinking that the world would force upon us, and to act accordingly” (Paul for Everyone: Romans, Part Two).
How to Change Your Thinking
Too often, we may believe that because we are a “new creation in Christ,” we’ve arrived at the Christian life. We forget that we come to Christ with a worldview that doesn’t fit the life we’re now called to live. Even though Jesus now lives in us through his empowering Holy Spirit, we’ve got to agree that He be allowed to transform us–and then do our part.
It works the same way as my shower. There’s a torrent of water waiting behind the wall, but I’ve got to agree that turning the shower knob is necessary to experience it–and then I have to turn it.
Likewise, transforming your mind involves both the power of the Holy Spirit and sacrificial work on your part. You’ve been shaped by your past thinking, past habits, past behavior–and now you’ve got to give them up and replace them with new thinking, new habits, and new behavior. As Romans 12:1 tells us, “Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering” (MSG).
And all of this change starts with changing how you think about things. And you can’t think in a new way, the right way, about things if you’re not learning how Jesus thinks, which requires that you actively, prayerfully, and regularly read the Bible and become part of an authentic Christian community.
The Renewal of the Mind
The world that doesn’t know God is actively teaching you all the wrong ways to think. Spending more time listening to it than you do to God will keep you from renewing your mind–and, as a result, keep you from good and meaningful relationships.
You may have been a believer in Jesus for years but have never really pursued renewing your own mind. Or you may be new to the faith or still exploring it. Or maybe you’re just getting serious about Jesus.
It is never too late–or too early–to begin the process of renewing your mind. It starts with embracing this truth: Jesus, the King of the Universe and the Son of God, gave up his rightful place in the kingdom of God to enable you to be transformed.
It is then indeed possible to live and love like Jesus as described by Paul in Romans 12. So don’t settle for less by holding on to what gets in the way of a Jesus-filled life.