If you are struggling to find victory in your life, you may want to take a look at your relationships. You may be battling a persistent sin, or trying to make it through a challenging time. You may even feel like your relationship with God has reached a plateau and you desire a deeper more powerful walk of faith. If this is you, have you let the Holy Spirit search your relationship with others?

As hard as it is for us to grasp, God designed us to be in relationship with others and the quality of those relationships can affect other areas of our physical and spiritual lives. When we harbor unforgiveness and bitterness, we can find our bodies suffering and our faith flailing. Some studies have even linked these powerful internalized emotions to health issues, including severe arthritis.

Now no one would suggest that everyone suffering with a physical illness is suffering because of unforgiveness or hatred, but these attitudes do influence our lives in ways we do not expect. They certainly have profound influence on our spiritual lives. The Scripture declares that love in our relationships leads to our abiding in the light, and destructive attitudes in relationships can lead to spiritual blindness that will prevent us from moving forward on our faith journey.

God wants us to walk in the light, because God wants us to prosper and be in health. He wants us to tap into the awesome power of right relationships and appropriate attitudes. Just as we desire the best for those we love, so God desires the best for us because His love for us is perfect. God also takes the first step in modeling the heart of love and forgiveness by loving us into right relationship with Him. We are reminded that God proves His love toward us in that Christ died for us while we were still sinners.

God took action to restore our relationship with Him while we were still living in opposition to Him. He made the way for us to receive full forgiveness, and now He asks us to be like Him and offer love and forgiveness to others, even before they have earned our forgiveness. When we are obedient to this call of God on our lives, we receive His pleasure and we receive His blessing. Our willingness to love as God loves and to forgive as we have been forgiven turns on the light of heaven in our lives and removes the cause of stumbling.

If you honestly desire God-given victory in you life, take the first step and be sure that you are protected from spiritual blindness. Don’t let someone else keep you from your blessing and potentially your destiny. Make a decision to let healthy God-led relationships be the norm in your life. Refuse to let offense settle in, or allow wounds to fester. Follow God’s steps in Matthew 18 to heal damaged relationships and allow the Holy Spirit to search you and lead you into the wholeness God has for.

There truly is an awesome power to be found in unity and love. Let the Lord lead you into His very best for you and trust Him to give you the power to release past hurts and struggles, all for the purpose of experiencing the beauty of a life lived in the light of love.