Friendship – The Glue of Covenant

Greetings;

I have been writing in regard to the focus of a covenant leadership team. Today I want to just share my heart a bit as to what I feel is the glue of a covenant team. I stated last week that friendship is essential among the members of a covenant team. Friendship includes the element of liking one another. Unfortunately, many people view the concept of “liking one another” through a contract paradigm and not a covenant one. In a contract certain conditions are met that benefit the mutual members of the team. That contract is binding as long as the conditions are met that benefit the members of the team. A contract mentality is susceptible to offenses that will erode the substance of love and destroy the atmosphere of life in the relationship of a team. When the needs of a team member fail to be met by another member their relationship with that member is shaken and they can become induced to make natural judgments according to natural understanding in regard to their connection on the team. The team member feels they are not receiving what they should receive on the team and they become offended.

In a covenant leadership team the binding purpose of the team is not the team. It is one of pleasing the Father and living for the children and the children’s children. The focus of the team is not the team. It is something beyond the team. Being disconnected from one another is not an option, since the life of the team is seen in the fruit of the team. Fruit brings life and energy to others. Something of the team is meant to bring life to those they lead.

Although purpose is a strong element that spawns a furtherance of connection in a covenant team, there is something greater than purpose. I believe that is divine connection. God is the one who joins us in true friendships. I can’t say that the disciples of Jesus would have likely sought one another out to create a covenant leadership team. Jesus, however, did seek them out and He divinely joined them together that they might become a team. Only one member failed and that was Judas. He failed to live to please the Father and he failed to live for the future of the children and the children’s children. He didn’t have a revelation of covenant and therefore he fell short of the covenant purpose of the team. Jesus made it known to the disciples that the strength of their team was one of friendship with God and friendship with one another. I believe that the disciples were given a great gift and that gift included the ability to embrace a divine connection that inspired a love for God and one another.

The enemy seeks to destroy relationships, because relationships are the key to the inheritance of God in the earth. Offences seek to destroy commitments. Offences lead to judgments and judgments will resist faith actions in a relationship that will fortify self-preserving defensive acts that begin to establish walls of disconnection. Without an understanding of friendship a members of a team can become self-seeking in their motives and defilements will propagate self-testimonies that close the heart to corporate realities of the team. Disconnections by differences will set foundations for self-seeking divisiveness. A force like the power of the prophetic becomes a destructive power of negative attitudes, thoughts, words, and actions. There is no submission, but only subversion due to differences. The measuring of things in the relationship becomes self-focused and apathy spawns a care for external things above the relationship. Logic and reasoning bind the failing members to a stronghold of atrophy toward the future. The result is a divorce and a loss of destiny in the relationship.

Every God-ordained relationship must have within it increasing measures of commitment, faith, response, submission, contribution, love, and dedication. The foundation for these things is to first of all know that it is God who has joined the members of the team. We must then choose to seek to be friends above all else in order for God’s unfolding plan of purpose to prevail for every season of the team. The foundation of our friendship is that God has joined us together and that our lives together will bring life to others because of us. We choose to seek to be friends and in choosing to be friends we find that we actually are friends. Even in the area of our differences we find the greatest strength of connection when we choose to be friends. Friendship is the way of a covenant team.

Food For Thought,

Ted J. Hanson

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