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Jan 19, 2025 06:00am

Total Control Over 50%

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Over the years, I have noticed that one of the hardest parts of any relationship is that we spend an exorbitant amount of time and energy trying to change the things that we have no control over. In our personal relationships, it is often things that we prefer to be a particular way. In spiritual relationships, it is often and effort to try to coerce another person to align with God’s commands and standards for living.

Regardless of the type of relationship we are dealing with, we have complete and total control of only 50% of everything that happens in that relationship. Interestingly, we have a tendency to focus on the 50% that we have no control over rather than the 50% we do have control over. Maybe as you are reading this, your thoughts are: “I’m happy with the 50% that I have control over, and don’t want to do anything different”. I completely understand this thought. We tend to think our own ways are best and most beneficial, especially if we can support it with scripture. But this was not our Lord’s approach to relationships.

Over and over again throughout the Gospels, Jesus is seen acting from a place of compassion, loving people regardless of who they were and what they were. He not only demonstrated this love and compassion to others, but He also spoke of His Father’s love for them in sending Jesus to be the ultimate sacrifice for their sins. But in John 3:19, scripture is very clear that the people He came to, did not all respond in a way that was receptive to Jesus. This verse says that, “the light (Jesus) came into the world, and the people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil”. We tend to forget that this love for darkness is not completely eradicated in the hearts of mankind, when we trust in Jesus as our Savior and choose to follow Him. This love of darkness is addressed slowly in the heart of a believer by the Holy Spirit working in a person to nurture holiness throughout their lifetime. This means that on any given day, your spouse, your child, your fellow church member, or your friend may demonstrate by their behavior that their love of darkness is still present and active. This is when we typically try to control the things beyond our control in order to “fix” the relationship. But if we focus on the things we can control and respond to the things we cannot control in a way that mimics our Lord. What is that going to look like?

Here are a few observations from our Lord’s life for us to learn from:

First, His focus in everything He says and does is God’s glory. He speaks truth to those who are in sin so that they have opportunity to repent and receive God’s grace and therefore give God more glory. But if they reject the opportunity to repent, He doesn’t take this personally and get defensive or angry or try to coerce them. Instead, He manages His own 50% by managing behavior and emotions so that God stills receives glory from Him personally. Often our responses to the sin of others are as offensive to God as the sin we are responding to.

The second thing I notice about our Lord is that He begins and ends with compassion in His interactions with the darkness in others. Many times, we see Jesus as He initiates conversations with those in sin. His motivation for addressing them is not merely for the sake of ‘bringing them into compliance’ but more about wanting to spare them from the consequences of their sin. I think we get this right sometimes but other times we just want to prove that we are right or shame someone else. It’s important that in managing our own 50% that we check our motivation for addressing someone else’s sin and make sure it’s coming from a place of compassion for them. The other part of this compassion piece is ending our interaction with compassion even if the person we are interacting with is unwilling to repent. If there is anyone who has a right to take unrepentance personally, it would be Jesus. He gave the gift of His life to pay our penalty, and the unrepentant one is rejecting it. But He doesn’t respond with anger or coercion or shame. He knows that this is not the time for that. Until Jesus returns, God will extend mercy to them until He cannot any longer. It doesn’t mean that there aren’t any consequences to unrepentance but even those consequences are an act of mercy from God to draw us back to Him. It’s important that we maintain an attitude of compassion so that when God does draw them to repentance, we will be in a place to receive them as His people and multiply His glory in us and them.

The last thing I would like to point out that Jesus did to manage His 50% is that He did not get worked up about people who talked badly about Him or rejected Him in some way. I know that this is hard because it is so very hurtful. I can’t imagine the pain He must have felt because the biggest part of those that talked badly about Jesus and rejected Him were His own family and countrymen. But it’s important for us to realize we cannot control what people think or say. We must manage our 50%. It may surprise you to know that Jesus’ response to these was to not “entrust Himself to them” and moved on to the next person or town to present the opportunity of salvation to others. Again, Jesus did not move on in anger or resentment, but He recognized their limitations and accepted where they were at the moment.

As I am writing this, it occurs to me that because He is God, Jesus had the power and ability to take on the other 50% that was in the hands of these people, but He did not do that. In an act of submission to His Father, He modeled for us how to live in God’s kingdom and trust Him with ourselves and others.