Bible Study 4-Part Series
Series Title: Love Clinic

Week One: What You Need to Know to Be With Me

Synopsis of 02/06/19 Bible Study

Delivered by Bishop Joseph W. Walker, III, D.Min.

John 15:10-12, “10 If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. 11 “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. 12 This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”

I.          Introduction

1. Relationships, friendships, marriage all take on different meanings today. For instance, 20 yrs ago the term “dating” was viewed much different from the way we view these type of relationships today.
2. It is hard to know what Dating is today. Today, when we say we are dating we wonder is the person is saying that the two are seeing each other or does it mean they are doing something else?
3. Friendships today are the same way. We view Friendships so casual now, everyone seems to be our friend. Friendships should really carry a certain weight and responsibility.
4. Marriages are different. We see a lot of different types of marriages. First, we have the Image Marriage, then we have the “I want a baby marriage”. Next, we have the “I got pregnant and we got married” type of Marriage. We also have the “Everyone but us, sees us as being good together” type of marriage.
5. There are uncompromising standards for healthy godly relationships. You got to take time to learn things about the other person to make the relationship work.

Steps to Having a Healthy Godly Relationship:

1. Love God First. – You’ve got to be in relationship with God first. If you spend more time in your relationship than you do with God, then you know it is an out of whack relationship.

Scripture References: Mark 12:30 (NKJV) ³⁰ And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ ^[a]This is the first commandment. – God wants you to let Him be your priority. You have to have a relationship with God first, before you can have a relationship with anyone else.

 Matthew 6:33 (NKJV) ³ But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. – You got to get to a point where you want to get right with God first. God might frustrate your attempts to get into relationship, because you haven’t first got into relationship with Him.

1. Learn to love God first.

2. Learn to Love Yourself.

Scripture Reference: Ephesians 5:29 (NKJV) ²⁹ For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. – Don’t be so busy loving everyone else that you sacrifice yourself. You got to get to a point where you take care of you. You can’t give what you ain’t got.

1. If you don’t like you, who else will love you? Invest in yourself. Take care of yourself. Don’t get into relationship and let yourself go.

3. Pray to Discern if this Person is Right for Your Life. – Discernment can be important when it comes to relationships.

Scripture Reference: 1 Corinthians 2:14 (NKJV) 14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.   – Often, we go into relationship through our flesh.

1. Relationship must be discerned in the spirit and not in the flesh.
2. Earthly people start with perception first. The image portrayed by the person that interests you, feeds your perception.
3. Spiritual people start with integrity. Questioning the integrity of a person will lead to the truth. This makes Holy Wedlock and Unholy Padlock.
4. Get to Know the Real Person. – You got to know the person to the core.

Scripture Reference: John 8:32 (NKJV) ³² And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”  – We spend more time researching a puppy we want to buy, than the person we want to be with.

“Hell is truth seen too late.” –Thomas Hobbes

1. Don’t’ get caught up in perception. Get to the truth by discernment.

1. What Makes Me Want You
2. The capacity of your compassion comes from Christ
3. You can accept things better when you know the truth. A lot of people think a person wouldn’t want them, knowing the truth about them.

2.      Love is not based on what you get in return. It is unconditional.

Scripture References: 1 Peter 4:8 (NIV) (NIV) 8 Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. – I love you to the point that I can love you knowing everything about you. It is hard to love all that, if you don’t know all of that.

3. When you love deeply it is more than physical connection or lust. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a (NIV) ⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor oth ers, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. ⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. – Love me without losing yourself.

1. You should be the same after you come together with a person. You shouldn’t have to lose yourself to be with someone.

B.      You can love me without losing you

Scripture References: Psalm 139:14 ¹⁴ I will praise You, for [a]I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well. ; – You are wonderfully made.

1. Wonderfully made – The root word for wonderfully is wonderful. You are wonderful.
2. People package you together and people don’t know who you are. You can’t give your status away to be in a mediocre relationship.

• Genesis 2:24 (NKJV) ²⁴ Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be^[a] joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.;- One flesh doesn’t mean you turn magically into one person. It means you ae joined together at the heart. This is why every attack on a relationship deals with the heart
• Ezekiel 36:26 (NKJV) ²⁶ I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. – A heart made of stone makes you un able to love. Your heart is the biggest gift you can ever give somebody.
• Proverbs 4:23 (NKJV) ²³ Keep your heart with all diligence, For out of it spring the issues of life. – You got to be able to keep your heart in a good place. People have to be able to earn your heart.

III. Walking with Wisdom

1. Learn me or leave me– You got to know a person. You need to know what makes them cry and what makes them shutdown along with other things that make them perk? You have to study people.

Ex – 2 yrs after Bishop’s first wife died, he started dating. While dating, one of things he used to do is study the person he was trying to date. In other words, he wanted to know what triggers them to cry or what makes them shutdown and other things similar to this. He explained that by doing this, it taught him when he should talk to a person and when he should approach the person he was dating.

1. The most important thing about your relationship is knowing that the other person understands you and knowing that they get you.

2.      Michal was married to King David for years. After the ark of the covenant returns to Israel, David danced so hard, he danced out of his clothes. While all of this is going on, David’s wife Michal looks out the window at him.

Scripture Reference: 2 Samuel 6:16 (NKJV) 16 Now as the ark of the Lord came into the City of David, Michal, Saul’s daughter, looked through a window and saw King David leaping and whirling before the Lord; and she despised him in her heart.

2 Samuel 6:20-23 (NKJV) ²⁰ Then David returned to bless his household. And Michal the daughter of Saul came out to meet David, and said, “How glorious was the king of Israel today, uncovering himself today in the eyes of the maids of his servants, as one of the base fellows [a]shamelessly uncovers himself!” ²¹ So David said to Michal, “It was before the Lord, who chose me instead of your father and all his house, to appoint me ruler over the people of the Lord, over Israel. Therefore I will play music before the Lord. 22 And I will be even more undignified than this, and will be humble in my own sight. But as for the maidservants of whom you have spoken, by them I will be held in honor.” 23 Therefore Michal the daughter of Saul had no children to the day of her death. – Michal despised David (her husband) in her heart. She didn’t understand him.

3. If you are busy, you can’t marry lazy. David is dancing and Michal is at home. David has this high spiritual experience and he’s hype. He wants to bring the expiring to his house, but Michal disapproves.
4. In verse 21, David explained God has this ordained him before he put David and Michal together. Milco didn’t bore children, because David stopped being intimate with here, because she didn’t understand him.

B.      Timing is everything

Scripture References: Ecclesiastes 3:1 (NKJV) 3 To everything there is a season,
A time for every purpose under heaven:  – Don’t rush the process, just because you are ready to get down the aisle. People spend more time getting ready to get married, than they do working in their marriage to make it successful.

1. You have to learn how to invest and wait. Ruth waited and Boaz approached her. Boaz studied her. Sometimes you can meet the right person at the wrong time. You have to study the person you are interested in.
   1. Ruth 2:23 (NKJV) ²³ So she stayed close by the young women of Boaz, to glean until the end of barley harvest and wheat harvest; and she dwelt with her mother-in-law.

1. Working Well to Win

A.     I’m a package deal

1.      You need someone that works well with you.

Scripture Reference: James 5:16 (NKJV) ^16 [a]Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, [b]fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. – Have a mutual understanding between the two of you.

B.      Work with me, not against me

Scripture References: Amos 3:3 (NKJV) ³ Can two walk together, unless they are agreed? – In relationship you need a ride or die. It is hard to be ride or die if you have only met your image.

Proverbs 18:24 (NKJV) ²⁴ A man who has friends ^[a]must himself be friendly,
But there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. ; – There is a person that will love you despite your baggage.

1 Peter 3:7, 8 (NKJV) ⁷ Husbands, likewise, dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife, as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered. ⁸ Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another; love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be ^[a]courteous; – We are in this, because we are on our way somewhere together. If we enter relationship, we have similar paths or goals.

1. Anyone that will stifle your dream, is a person that is only tolerating you and not celebrating you.
2. Relationships matter. You know how hard it is for you to be with yourself. Know that there must be someone out there anointed just to be with you.