How did Jesus do this? I am going to show you two examples from Scripture.

Let's look at when Jesus first met Peter. You can read about it in John 1:42. It says,

And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus looked at him, he said, You are Simon the son of Jonah: you will be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, a stone.

Well we all know that Peter was no stone. He was as floppy and flappy as a jellyfish. He was as unstable as the wind.

Jesus knew that, but He said,

"Peter, I am calling you a stone. I'm calling you the potential that I see in you, not what you are."

What potential do you see in one another? Do you dare to even give another person the privilege of having an opportunity, or are you too busy being wrapped up in yourself?

Another person was Nathanael. He was never a big claim to fame and we don't hear much from him in the Scriptures. When Jesus met him in John 1:47 it says,

Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and said concerning him, Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!

If you read the Scripture just before that, somebody came to Nathanael and said,

"Hey, we found the Messiah!"

He replied, "Are you kidding? Nothing good could come out of Nazareth."

So, Nathanael went to go and meet Jesus, and Jesus said,

"An Israelite in whom there is no guile."

John 1:48 says,

Nathanael said to him, From where do you know me? Jesus said to him, Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.

Jesus was saying,

"I saw you and I see your potential, Nathanael. You have no guile in you. You are a real man."

Nathanael was now no longer saying,

"Can anything good come out of Nazareth?"

He was now saying,

"This is my man!"

He was ready to follow Jesus. You see He knew how to do it. It is a pity we don't do that isn't it? But we could learn.

More Than Human Power Needed

You are not going to be able to do this with human power. You can only do a certain amount with human power.

One of the most famous books ever written is a book called How to Win Friends and Influence People. The late Dale Carnegie wrote it.

If you have never read that book, go and get it. It is inexpensive and you can buy the download on Kindle or online for a pittance. It is one of the most inspiring books.

Dale Carnegie discovered some of the things I'm sharing here about human nature just by research. He taught how you can get people to like you, to respond to you and to build friends.

Of course, he also taught people how to use that in a business context to get people to buy from them. It is one of the most powerful books ever written by a person who was kind of godly, but not really a Christian.

Some of the principles he taught are totally sound and Scriptural. But you see he didn't know about grace, and he didn't know about the power of the Spirit.

Use Your Spiritual Forces

We have been learning from The New Way of Blessing, that we have three forces within our spirits. Those three forces can create everything that we will ever need or desire in life and they are the forces are faith, love and hope.

So, if we want to create a relationship, the first step is to be able to be gracious, to accept people and to recognize them.

But for us to accomplish this, we will need more than human nature. We will need the power of the Spirit. And that power will be manifest in those three forces.

How do we do that to build relationships? The first thing you must do is show somebody that you believe in them. That is the force of faith. Say to someone,

"I believe in you."

Say it, even though you may be tempted to say,

"I believe in you, even though you are a miserable failure."

If many of us had had a father who believed in us, we probably would have accomplished a lot more in life. But very often we didn't have that, and so we struggled.

You must show people that you have hope in them. And you must also show them that you love them.

How are you going to show them? Think about how we release spiritual forces? There are two ways - words and action.

Showing Faith, Hope and Love

So, let me show you how you release the spiritual forces in words and action to build relationships.

Releasing Through Words

How do you show someone that you believe in them? You tell them,

"I believe in you."

You may choke on it as much as the first time you told somebody you loved them.

When my wife and I first started going out, we were already talking about marriage within three days. I didn't have time to feel anything for her yet, so when I said, "I love you," I did it in faith.

The feelings weren't there yet. But you see I spoke the words in faith and then the feelings came afterwards.

All of love requires an action. The Bible doesn't say, For God felt so wonderful about the world. No, He loved the world and that love is unconditional. So, tell them you believe in them.

How do you express hope? Say to them,

"I will stick with you, even if you fail. I have hope in you that if you keep going you will succeed. I'm not giving up on you."

When you say that, it shows you are releasing hope towards that person.

How do you show love? Tell them they are special to you. Say to them,

"You are important to me. You are special. I want you to know that you are no ordinary person. You have a special place in my heart."

Would you feel bad about a person who did that to you? Could you be negative about a person who did that to you?"

Do that even if you looked at them and thought,

"I don't want to be associated with that punk."

They come and say something good to you, then you think,

"He is not such a punk after all!"

We kind of start making excuses, don't we?

Releasing Through Actions

That is how you release through words. How about actions? How do you show faith in someone with actions? You trust them to do something.

As a leader you sometimes need to trust somebody to do something, even though they have never done it too well up until then. They certainly can't do it as good as you.

You might say to someone,

"I have faith in you. Why don't you come up and preach instead of me?"

They might say, "I don't know how to preach."

"It's all right. I believe in you. You will learn."

Hope again allows them to fail. So, when they stand up and put their foot in their mouths and feel so ashamed that they want to crawl out of the door you say,

"Don't worry, that was only your first try. You'll get better next time. I have hope in you."

If someone said that to you, wouldn't you get up and preach again? Sure you would.

What about love? Give them what they don't deserve, because that is the love of God. The Scripture says,

For God so loved the world that he gave.

Love is always manifested in giving. As parents we are often guilty of telling our kids,

"I'm not going to bless you because you were naughty. You were bad. If you are good, I will buy you that gift."

Don't ever do that to your children. Don't ever do it to anybody else either. Learn to give, not out of obligation. Learn to give and to say,

"You are important enough to me. I care enough to give."

If you really want to demonstrate it well, give them something that is really going to cost you.

We love to give out of our excess, don't we? We say,

"I have two cars and you really need one. So, I will give you the clapped out old one that I don't really need anymore."

That is not what Jesus did. He would have said,

"I will give you the Merc and I will keep driving the clapped-out VW."

I told you that this one was going to cost you. But you know what? If you were to manifest this to somebody, that person would cling to you like glue. They have never found anybody in this world who ever treated them that way before. You have a relationship growing without you doing anything more.

Become Other Oriented

So, do you want to build relationships? Maybe you say,

"It's not fair. Nobody likes me. Nobody ever wants to hang around with me. What's wrong with me? Am I ugly or stupid? What is it about me?"

It's not about you. It's about them. Take your eyes off yourself and look at them. Give them what they so earnestly desire.

And you know what? Eventually they will start giving it back, but you will not be demanding it.

It will happen. We love Him because He first loved us. You cannot love a person without them eventually beginning to feel positive towards you. And eventually they will love you also.