BEING A POLITE PERSON IN A RUDE WORLD: It seems that genuine kindness is becoming more and more difficult to find these days. Rudeness often wins out. Have you ever met someone so tactless it appears they confront you just to hurt you? What’s the first thing most people do after this happens? We go to someone else and talk about what the other person did or said. I laughed out loud tonight when I accidentally ran across “rude street names” when searching Google earth. Sadly, the Christian-realm is not immune from earthly ungracious behavior. Plenty of rude people are found in churches just like the rest of the world. Why does this happen? I believe the temptation to be unkind is so great at times, it’s almost like a trap. But is it an unsuspected hidden danger? Humans seem to enjoy inflicting pain on one another. Sadly, some rifts in relationships get so bad that healing never takes place and dead ends are formed in our relationships. So, what’s the way out? The answer goes back to Loving God, Loving Others, and Loving Ourselves. Romans 8:9-11 The Message (MSG) says, “But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won’t know what we’re talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God’s terms. It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he’ll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s!”
Posted on: Mon, 04 Aug 2014 05:13:01 +0000