If I asked you what your #1 goal in life is, what would be your answer? Happiness? Success? Wealth? Comfort? Fame? To have fun? To be respected? Your answer would reveal your dominant life value. Everyone has a dominant life value, whether they realize it or not. You have one. It’s what you unconsciously base your decisions on.
If your dominant life value is having fun, when choosing between two events, you’ll naturally choose the one that’s more fun. If your dominant life value is comfort, you’ll tend to choose what’s most comfortable for you. If it’s safety, you’ll choose the least risky alternative. If it’s being appreciated, you’ll do what gets you the most recognition.
God tells us that our dominant life value is love. Because God is love, and because he created you to love you, he wants you to learn to love too. Learning to love is the #1 lesson God intends for you to learn here on earth. Life is the school of love. Jesus once said that the entire Bible can be summed up in two commands: Love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:37–39).
In fact, every one of the New Testament writers taught that learning to love God and each other is the most important lesson God expects us to learn. Paul wrote, “Let love be your highest goal” (1 Corinthians 14:1 NLT). John wrote, “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death” (1 John 3:14). James wrote, “If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself,’ you are doing right” (James 2:8). Peter wrote, “Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8 NLT).
Learning to love God and others is to be our highest goal, our greatest aim, our first priority, our deepest aspiration, our strongest ambition, our constant focus, our passionate intention, and the dominant life value of our lives. The more we learn to how to love authentically, the more like Jesus we become.
This book is written by someone who has modeled genuine love to others for his entire adult life. For over thirty-five years, I’ve closely watched how Tom Holladay lives and leads by showing Christlike love to everyone, so I felt very fortunate when he married my sister. With his incredible grasp of both the Scriptures and human nature, Tom is eminently qualified to teach and write on this profound theme. For the nearly twenty years Tom has been a teaching pastor at Saddleback Church, tens of thousands of Saddleback members have been blessed by his insights into relationships. And hundreds of thousands of pastors have been trained by Tom as he and I have traveled the world together. This man has much to say, and you’ll be blessed if you listen to him!
The opening sentence of The Purpose Driven Life is “It’s not about you.” This book, The Relationship Principles of Jesus, is a natural extension of that concept. Selfishness must be replaced by unselfishness. Conceit must be replaced by compassion. Ego must be replaced by altruism. The focus on “me” must give way to “we.” It’s all about loving God and others.
But how? In our fallen world where every heart and relationship is marred, broken, and damaged by sin, how can we apply the healing power of authentic love? This book points the way. Learning to love unselfishly is not an easy task. It runs counter to our self-centered nature. Only Jesus can teach us the kind of love that heals, restores, and deepens relationships. And only Jesus can give us the power to love that way.
The Relationship Principles of Jesus deals with the second of Five Renewals I deeply believe are needed in our culture and world. The first book, The Purpose Driven Life, focused on personal renewal. This is the starting point. Everything starts in the heart. Only changed people can change the world. The foundation for everything is getting to know and love God and serving his five purposes for your life.
But you were never meant to live your life in a vacuum. In fact, you cannot fulfill your life’s purposes by yourself. You need other people’s help, and they need yours. We’re better together. This second kind of renewal, relational renewal, is what this book is all about. You must not only learn to love God with all your heart (personal renewal); you must learn to love your neighbor as yourself (relational renewal.)

Tom Holladay and Rick Warren, The Relationship Principles of Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2023).