The Word for Today
With Bob Gass
 | Showing Grace (1) Let your conversation be gracious. - Colossians 4:6 NLT |
Even when you try to "live at peace with everyone" (Ro 12:18 NIV):
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Conflicts will still arise. After all, life would be boring if we all marched to the same drumbeat. That's why there are so many coffee flavours and political opinions! You don't have to concede or compromise your values, but it costs no more to be tactful and gracious than it does to be critical and caustic. And that's especially true when correction is called for.
Paul says, "If a Christian is overcome by...sin, you who are Godly...humbly help him back onto the right path" (Gal 6:1 TLB).
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Even Christians won't always agree. Chuck Swindoll writes: "When I was younger I couldn't understand how two people who loved the Lord and believed the Bible, could come to different conclusions. In my two-by-four thinking I was convinced that all Godly minds held to identical conclusions... I soon discovered that there weren't only various opinions, but God had the audacity to bless those who disagreed with me.... [He] isn't nearly so narrow-minded as many of His people... God's much easier to live with... tolerant... full of more grace and forgiveness than all of us."
Every perspective has some merit. When you grow up in a home that functions on a right versus wrong justice scale, the person who's 'right' gets praised while the one who's 'wrong' gets put down. And that's a pity because generally it's not an "I'm-right-and-you're-wrong" issue, as much as an "I-see-it-this-way-and-you-see-it-that-way" issue.
So before you go to war ask yourself, "What's more important, my need to correct or my need to connect? Can I let somebody else be 'right' sometimes, without injecting my opinion?"
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This message from The Word for Today came from Rhema Broadcasting Group Incorporated in association with The Vine, New Zealand. "The Word for Today"® is copyright © Bob Gass Ministries.
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