Love & Friendship in the New Testament: How to Expand Your Ability to Give and Be There for Others

The New Testament provides us with many insights and advice-tips about love and relationships. These emphasize, time and again, the importance of loving others and being there for them.

HERE ARE 10 SUCH INSIGHTS:

1. A faithful friend is the medicine of life (Ecclesiasticus 6:16).
2. Beloved, let us love one another (John 4: 7).
3. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honour one another above yourselves. (Romans 12:10).
4. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. (Corinthians 13:13).
5. Let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth (John 3:18).
6. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear (John 4:18).
7. Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling (Peter 4:8-9).
8. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends (Corinthians 13:7-8).
9. Two are better than one (Ecclesiastes 4:9).
10. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh (Ephesians 5:31).

CAN WE BE THERE FOR OTHERS AS MUCH AS WE WOULD LIKE TO?

These teach us to be there for others. This is a very moralistic, humane, idealistic, even an altruistic behaviour. Feeling able to being there for others usually fills us with pride, a sense of self-value, a feeling of “contribution” to and caring for our fellow men.
But can we be there for others as much as we would like to? With an open heart, empathy and a sense of personal empowerment?

YOU CAN TRULLY, COMPLETELY AND UNCONDITIONALLY BE THERE FOR OTHERS ONLY WHEN YOU MAKE PEACE WITH YOURSELF

Being there for others, helping them go through life and its difficulties, facilitating their way to their own happiness and supporting them with open heart, empathy and tolerance necessitate that you first make peace with yourself and sit comfortably in your skin.

Getting to make peace with yourself requires that you develop SELF-AWA
ENESS:

* Get to know and understand who you are: your strengths and limitations; traits and characteristics;
* Confront and solve issues which might inhibit your personal growth, such as needs and fears you are unaware of; the “escape routes” you take to avoid confronting issues; denying and rejecting parts of yourself; masks you wear to hide the “real you”.
* Be connected to your own will and act according to what feels right to you with your friends and partners, and not do what doesn’t feel right.
* Become authentic and empowered;
* Feel secure about “who you are”.

MAKING PEACE WITH YOURSELF EMPOWERS YOU TO BE THERE FOR OTHERS

Making peace with yourself, taking care of and being there for yourself is no egoism; it is a process of self-actualization and becoming a whole, thus empowered to be there for others with OPEN HEART, TRUE INTENTIONS AND PERSONAL STRENGTH.