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Janet's Blog
Janet's Blog
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Kindness and Conflict among Christians
| Posted on 21 October, 2015 at 3:59 |
comments (3)
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In Eph 4:32
the apostle Paul speaks about Christlike behavior among Christians. In
previous verses, he addresses behavior that is not Christlike. One of the
terms he uses is “unwholesome words” and how many of us have caught Christians
out on this including ourselves at some-time. Negativity or negative reports is
one of them. Let’s see if we can monitor our words with each-other because “our
tongue is an unruly member” according to James, that does not know much
restraint. We need to watch our thoughts, to make sure they are healthy too. THOUGHTS =
WORDS = ACTIONS Paul says
not to be given to anger, bickering and strife but rather “Be kind and
compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God
forgave you”. The words compassion and tender-hearted are used interchangeably
in different translations. This article
contains a few corrective words and encouragements. You know, we
hear so many things about what God can do for us in pastors sermons and what we
will do for Him in prophetic messages. I would like to address some necessary
things in-between if that’s alright with you? Because the
others will not be………without awareness and change in this area (Ephisians 4
in practice). You will be short on answered prayers and moving in the Spirit in
the End-Time Move of God. Better Behavior Among Christians If you are one of those Christians
who leave things undone and someone unsettled, that does not please The Lord –
He is not impressed. And you did not get away with it because you are reading
this and I am writing for that person you offended in Jesus’ name. The Lord is coming for those who are
prepared. “To those who overcome” scripture says. The stressful situations in
the world etc and the sin-nature as well……..anger, envy, unkindness, hostility,
dishonesty and poor behavior. Whatever you have to overcome in your personal
life. David said “search me oh God” yet so many take His Grace for granted and
treat it carelessly – this is evident when we neglect to spend time with Him.
It is also evidenced in the way we treat others. It’s a holy bond we have in
Christ. We ought to respect that and act accordingly. “Judge yourselves so you won’t be
judged”. He judges us on our true performance, not the one we like to think He
does. Let's do the same so we attract less judgement. It will matter more to us on that
Day, believe me. Jesus says that “His reward is with Him”. We should not treat
that so carelessly. Most of the time we don’t think about it. He goes on to say
that “He will render to each one according to what he has done”. So let’s be
true to ourselves and consider Him with our words and our actions. We dismiss so
much of what He has to say often. Our Christ likeness is determined by
how we react and respond to someone in a situation. Many of us know how to have
a holy conversation – we like to discuss spiritual things with Christian
friends. How do we behave when a situation arises with a Christian friend? Recently I had such a pleasant
conversation with a good Christian friend and you could say that much of the
content of conversation we had was holy. This sister really loves The Lord and
loves to have a good spiritual conversation with a friend. The last
conversation, we enjoyed so much over the phone, we thought of visiting each
other and staying overnight – we live a considerable distance. This was
followed by strange and inconsistent behavior. Does God Catch You Out? See if you can learn from this and
maybe even comforted when I share about it because I do this purely so we can
see ourselves or others in this example – not to air something I am displeased
with and offended about. God is interested in our daily behavior
more than we think. See in this situation I will give how God catches us off
guard often and also how we do not consider Him in our interactions with others.
At times we need to seek counsel from Him. At the time a situation came up with
this friend and myself, she had been giving me some really good encouragements about
one of my websites I had put such a lot of work into over the expanse of
several months. The site in question – whether I would keep it or not was
really nice and allowed Christians to participate and inspire each-other but only a small handful did over more than a year. This sister is generous with
expressing her joy about my giftings in website creation etc from The Lord
consistently since I’ve known her. That takes a big heart when you’ve been
unemployed for some years and would dearly love to have a gift to express
yourself in or success with something ventured. She was not well and had experienced
considerably stressful circumstances in recent months. I had it in my heart to
really bless this person. I said I would be getting an item she needed and
would be sending it to her and she was happy about it and in addition to that –
unknown to her – I thought I would surprise her by placing content along the
lines of something she likes very much on one of my websites. I had some really
good news to share with her as well. However, when I went to phone her,
she had a headache…..said she would phone me when she’s ready but I never got a
phone call. When this went on for several days – she had discovered the
surprise on my website, she failed to express her thanks whatever. I was mystified
by this – and I am big on thanks – I was’nt sure about sending an item to her
that week but sent it in good faith. I did send a message asking her why
she did not contact me or respond in anyway. That made her indignant – she replied saying that she was cancelling the friendship and sending the item
back. She did so, unopened and unwrapped………phoned me to say it was on the way
back…….reprimanded me, saying that “she does not like phone calls at all in the
morning, she likes to pray then!” I usually respected this but had made an
exception to let her know about an opportunity that had a time limit. She would
not let me get a word in edge-ways to respond to her and she went promptly on
her way. The Lord gave me wisdom to make my
query with her short when I contacted her but I failed to do that – saying that
I’ve had baffling incidents with Christians before and would she please not
repeat that. She said she phoned me a few times the day I phoned her and that I
would not pick up the phone. Then she repeated words back at me and said “no,
it would not be repeated” (what I did). There was so much blessing in store
for her I had in mind. Part of her actions made sense and some did not to this
day. In different ways, both of us failed to do the right thing. I did’nt listen close enough to The
Lord. She did not respond with thanks or express her joy but shared the news with another friend. Then acted with haste in a moment of anger. My advice to you in some of that is when you tell someone
something they did or failed to do is “keep it short and sweet” and it’s usually better to “ask first”. Try to avoid making them too uncomfortable. NOW I WILL GIVE YOU ENCOURAGEMENTS
THE LORD INSPIRED ME TO WRITE FOR YOU 2-3 WEEKS LATER. I KNEW HE WANTED ME TO
HELP MY READERS WITH COMMUNICATIONS BUT NEEDED TO DISTANCE MYSELF FIRST. Words of Wisdom and Comfort If we do not
forget what we have been through in past relationships, it can trip
us up in present relationships and/or cause discomfort to someone we have to
communicate with now. This in turn can cause considerable distress to both
parties – you and another person when a situation arises where neither yourself
or that other person is at fault. ie you may misinterpret something another
person says or does (or does not do) and they will not know how to interpret
your reactions. Also,
circumstances appear to be a certain way sometimes and you can best interpret
them when you have had healing from past experiences. Don’t let them – or give
them occasion to – mould your present response and reactions in life. Yes, this
actually caused a rift between a very good friend and myself and she must have
concluded that she would be more peaceful without the friendship. Circumstances
certainly did appear to be different than they were and I reacted to the
evidence of what seemed to be. That is why
always, it is good to look at our perception of things – in a given situation – we
are not sure of or there is some element of doubt. We need to stand back and
take a good look at things. We can best do this when giving ourselves a distance from a situation at hand. You do this
in meditative prayer. That means you take a matter to God and ask for His
guidance – objectively instead of subjectively. Sometimes we need to line
things up with scripture. That is a good way of handling impressions because as
they say__ “impressions can be wrong”…………”things are not always what they seem
to be”. You have
heard the saying where someone “looks at things through rose colored glasses?” We need to
be careful that we are not looking through lemon or grapefruit glasses
sometimes……thinking that things have gone sour again; they did not work out…….or
bitter, where our thoughts become angry or unkind towards someone…….or we are expecting
them to be angry or unkind with us because we have experienced that before. Please also
consider that when a situation is confusing or baffling to you, our enemy could
be at work – influencing your thoughts – and maybe attempting to spoil
something good in one or both of your lives. He knows that “united we stand and
divided we fall”. You know that we can actually fall away – and cause another
person to – a blessing The Lord has install for us and maybe even our
friendship. There have been instances in the lives of Christians where our
enemy will even incite one against the other (both parties) through confusion
and misinterpretation accompanied by unkind words and selfish acts. Please be
aware that this sometimes occurs with good quality friendships. He looks for a
weak link in our amour of
light. So be vigilent. Some
perfectly good Christian marriages have gone by the wayside when the enemy has
found a chink in their amour and built inroads into their thinking. Things
exist in our thinking first…..we dwell on them…..and it is’nt long before they
become words and actions (by-products
of our unhealthy thoughts or faulty thinking patterns). That’s why scripture
tells us to “cast aside every thought and imagination that comes against the
knowledge of God” or a person you have a good relationship with. In other words
“throw off these thoughts…… don’t let them sit there” until they disturb you
more. Yes rather, think pleasant thoughts like we are encouraged to in Phil 4
and displace the threatening or unpleasant thoughts with something good. You
can do this best by making Phil 4 your pattern for this
procedure. This is good
warfare (sideways) for those who don’t wish to engage the enemy directly with
spiritual weapons because they have been intimidated one too many times. Maybe
they have become battle fatigued. In this case, instead of taking up the
offensive weapons of war…….pick up the simple sling-shot like David and
dismantle the thought patterns you are developing (or have developed) and dwell
on all the pleasant things you can! You can also
make a simple act of will by contacting that person and saying (or inviting
them to do) something nice. This way we can challenge our thoughts and change
them to something constructive. With this practice, we can often surprise
ourselves by finding out that what we have/had building up in our minds is
simply not true. Simplicity is the best way often with many things in life –
don’t allow your thoughts to become complex and complicated. That is what these scriptures are telling us. We would be wise to follow Paul’s counsel. Jesus
used him to fill in so many practical things for spiritual applications that He
did not address in the Gospels. Also, he did this hands on through Paul, giving
us this spiritual training that for whatever reason, many of us miss out on. Necessary for Victories The Lord in
recent years is also raising up brothers and sisters who have captured certain
principles in scripture and put them into practice. Those who have been through
negative experiences seem to offer the most Hope because we can see they have
won their way through to some mighty victories, they share with us. We can all
take part in this when we seek The Lord for answers like they did or try
solutions God has given us through them. The Holy
Spirit revealed to Liberty Savvard years ago that we build up protective walls
around ourselves we think are helping us cope better. The way we respond and
react to people and life’s situations can be the very things that defeat us.
She explains how the lurks and strategies of the enemy are dependent on these
(or creating them) to gain advantage over us. So as long as we are in this
earthly tent, we need to be aware of these things and not consider ourselves exempt. The best way
we can deal with the enemy’s strongholds often is to tear down the thought
patterns that came with them in the first place. It is by far preferable to
always nip things in the bud – temptations and all – before they become
difficult to manage. You know
that often, when he sees us to be a threat, he seeks to spoil things. At times
he devises mischief when two Christians are experiencing much blessing or are about
to be used by God in a certain way. My friend and myself were
caught off guard. Please try not to be. Added Words of Comfort The Word of
God can help you to think soundly and maybe prevent you from doing something
you can regret because if given a good chance, it can restore you to a peaceful
state of mind. You can even be given insight into a situation………it may also
cause you to think, act and speak differently to what you would have or could
have. Yes, this is
a good way of preserving good relationships at the present time and/or
potentially good relationships. Such a practice will help you grow and make
your steps sure. You can be a
blessing to others and they can continue to be a blessing to you. Peace, my
brother and sister, to all your friendships and communications in Christ Jesus.
Together, we can be a happy family and a light to those around us as the Love
of God becomes evidenced in our hearts and lives. The Challenge “See how
they love each-other” and more men, women and children will come into the Ark of
Refuge. But what safety will they sense if our communications are unsettled?
Perhaps they handle some of their relationships better in a world of stress? Please do
consider the content of this post seriously – each one of you – and we can make
our Heavenly Father’s Heart Joyful that He sent His Son to Save Us. Yours in
Christ Jesus. |