Are You Being Measured By The Ones Who Love You?

Performance Based Relationships – Part 2

“Most human love is performance-based.”  – A Night with a Stranger

Do you know what that means?  Most human love?  Normal human love.  The love you identify most with is performance-based.  This means you more than likely have never encountered love that’s not performance-based.  If this is true and it is, you’ve yet to experience “real” love.  Welcome to the “Tower of Love”.  In the tower of love you get to see and understand what “real” love makes available.  That’s what this book we’re writing, The 16 Levels of Love is all about.  We are barely scratching the surface.  

Relationships for Relationship Sake
A common problem that we face is that we rely on performance for every relationship.  In other words, our relationships are based on how well each participant performs.  It happens in sports, it happens in our careers, it happens in our marriages, it happens in our family, it happens in friendships, it happens all the time.  The most common mistake we can make is basing a relationship on performance rather than relationship for relationship sake.  You see, performance is not the reason we are in a relationship from the start.  I am not in a relationship with my wife, just because of her performance, not at all for her performance.  We married for a different reason, a different set of guidelines.  We married because we were created to do “the business, we call lifetogether.  I’m not in a relationship with my daughter or my family because they perform at standards upon which I set.  In fact, we are in a relationship because we are family, not because we are able to perform each other’s desires, we are in a relationship for relationship sake.

“We base all our relationships on our performance.”  – What is God really Like by Craig Groeschel

How Your Relationships Are Being Stolen From You
So if the relationship is performance based, does the relationship end when the person stops performing?  The biggest mistake that we make or can make is using a performance based meter to determine whether we are going to stick with it or not.  Any relationship that is performance based, is destined for disappointment, destined for failure, destined for possible destruction.  

The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.” – ‭‭John‬ ‭10:10‬ ‭NLT‬‬

You see, you have an enemy that comes in, when you allow him to, especially when we apply methods that are common, natural, and ordinary, like performance-based love.  That enemy comes to steal first.  It allows him to steal your attention, your attitude, your admiration towards someone.  Then he comes to kill.  He will kill your whole disposition about a person just because they didn’t add up.  Ultimately he comes to destroy the entire relationship.  The devil, the enemy, doesn’t want you to be in a healthy relationship with anyone.  He doesn’t want you to have a good relationship with friends, or family.  He doesn’t want you to have a good relationship with your spouse.  He wants to destroy every relationship because he knows any GOOD relationship will edify you, will build you up, will make you something greater, and have the potential to make you extraordinary, not like anyone else.  No longer common!  

Question: What performance measurements are you using to qualify those with whom you have a relationship?  Leave a comment or send me an email.  Click here.

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