Someone seems stuck up or ignores you in church. Someone expresses a political opinion you think is terrible. Someone says unkind words about you. Someone is late to a meeting. Someone does not return your phone calls, text messages, or emails. Someone acts like a hypocrite. Someone misquotes the Bible. Someone has bad manners. Someone cuts you off in traffic. Someone criticizes you. Someone seems lazy or irresponsible.
Someone bores you. Someone smokes in the church parking lot. Make it personal 1. Describe additional things people do that irritate you.
How do you respond when you are upset or irritated? I feel hurt or take things personally. I criticize others or point out their mistakes. I tell others what they should do. I gossip, telling other people about things that hurt or upset me. Make it personal 3. How do you respond when people say or do things that irritate you? How do you think people feel when you correct them or tell them what to do?
Do you know someone who often corrects or instructs you? If so, how does that make you feel? Ephesians Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Matthew What do you think? What does it mean to show grace to others? Why is it important to show grace to others?
Pray for love and concern for others. Philippians Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.
God has shown such grace to us. We, in turn, are asked to show grace to each other. Here are nine ways to extend grace to others:. Here are a few ideas to start with…. Outdo one another in showing honor. First, be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. This made God angry enough to destroy everything on earth. He instructed Noah to go ahead and build an enormous ark. In the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, God instructed His servant to find even ten decent people in all of the land and He would spare the people.
In the story of Moses, God extended grace towards the Israelites and Moses himself multiple times in spite of their disobedience and rebellion. All our accomplishments, in school and at work, are only by His grace. Because of who God is, and all that He wants to accomplish within us, God wants us to extend grace to others.
He wants us to forgive them, to love them and to be kind to them even if they make it really hard to justify doing so. This meant that if a person was mean or disrespectful in any way that I should dish out the same treatment to them. I also believed that revenge was a dish best served cold. Back in , I made a series of bad decisions that went on to mess up my walk with Christ and ruined some very good relationships.
In my darkest hour, when I felt like God would never love me, accept me or extend His love towards me, He did just that. God sent some amazing people into my life to pick me up from that dark place that I had been living in and loved me into repentance until I eventually started on the path that I am currently on.
I am incredibly grateful. Read more about what grace means in Christianity here. Everyone has bad days and good days. Have you ever gone into a restaurant, office or gas station and encountered an unhappy worker? Chances are, that employee is having a bad day.
So how do you handle it?
0コメント