“Jesus said unto him"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Matthew 22:37-40
If you want to major on what God majors on, then major on these two things: Love the Lord thy God with your whole heart, soul, and mind and love thy neighbor as thyself.
“And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” Matthew 25:40
How we treat people is a reflection of our heart toward God. You cannot separate loving God and loving people. Loving people is loving God and loving God is loving people.
“And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutes thou me? And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutes: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks." Acts 9:4-5
Mistreating Christians is mistreating God and He takes it personal. We cannot separate how we treat God with how we treat people. Injuring people is injuring God.
“If a man say, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar: for he that loves not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, That he who loves God love his brother also.” I John 4:20-21
There is no grey area concerning this matter. When we stand before God He is not going to say "what are we going to do about this area? You didn't love and you didn't hate me?" No! There is no grey area about hate, hate is everything that isn't love.
If you don’t love your brother then you don’t love God. You cannot separate loving God from loving people. If they use their tongue to say that they love God, but then they use that same tongue to gossip—this is revealing that they are liar. There is a certain hate in their heart towards God. Injuring people is injuring God! If you don’t love you brothers then you don’t love God.
Seek Christ behind every face! Know what He thinks about our brethren and even about those who are unsaved.
“For thus saith the LORD of hosts; After the glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you: for he that touches you touches the apple of his eye.” Zechariah 2:8
The eye is the most sensitive part of the body. Would you like to be around someone who is always pocking you in the eye? Do we want Gods presence in us? Do we want Him in our home? Then be careful what you say about someone in your home. God hears what we say and it is like pocking Him in the eye when we talk poorly about one another. We want Gods presence, but if we are pocking Him in the eye (by saying things about one another that is not pleasing) He will not come.
“Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.” Matthew 7:12
How do we treat others? This reveals our heart towards God; treat others the way you want to be treated. The practice of this would put everything in right standing with God. Everyone giving everyone their best. That means doing to others what we would want done to our self and giving to others what we would want given to us.
The greatest mark of maturity is the ability to get along with others. We must major on relationships! If you have planted hundreds of churches, but you have failed in relationships then you have failed. If we fail in the area of relationships then in a real way we have failed. We are always going to encounter people who are different than us but we must overcome the difficulties and flow together.
Be careful of this attitude of complaining about those who rub you the wrong way. You will find that God uses difficult people to reveal certain areas in our lives that God wants to deal with. He uses those people to rub against us and to cut certain edges or characteristics out of us (Prov. 27:17). If we allow God to do His work in our life it also brings us up to a new level of maturity because you have learned to get along with one another.
So, instead of complaining look at the situation in a different light/angle; ask yourself, “What are they rubbing in my life that God wants to remove?” Have lips that are transparent (Rev. 14:5). This all hangs on one thing: love! We want the best and so give others your best and you will be giving God your best.
God Bless!
