Matters of the heart...

  The other day I was sitting in my room trying to have some quiet time when I kept finding myself stressing over how utterly frustrated I am with certain relationships I have in my life.  I want to be the kind of person who loves unconditionally, but honestly, sometimes it seems that the best I can do with some people is straddle the line between love and hate. So I decided to do a little study and looked up all those verses in the bible that talk about how we are to treat “one another”.  Verses like…

*Love one another (John 13:34, 35; 1 John 3:11, 23; 1 John 4:7, 11)

*Be devoted to one another (Romans 12:10)

* Live in Harmony with one another (Romans 12:16, 1 Peter 3:8))

*Stop passing judgment on one another (Romans 14:13)

*Accept one another (Romans 15:7)

*Serve one another (Galatians 5:13)

*Bear with one another (Ephesians 4:2)

*Be kind and compassionate to one another (Ephesians 5:21, 1 Thes 5:13))

*Encourage and build one another up (1 Thes 4:9; 1 Thes 5:11)

*Spur one another on (Hebrews 10:24)

*Offer hospitality to one another (1 Peter 4:9)

*Carry Each other’s burdens (Galatians 6:2)

  ….what I realized is that not a single one of these verses (there’s more than just what I listed) talks about the other person’s actions or attitudes….instead each and every single verse focuses on the attitude of your own heart!  So often it’s easy for me to think about how somebody else acted or came across or what they said…as if that justifies me in however I respond.  But the reality is…on judgment day, when I stand before God, I will not responsible for others, but rather for myself….so it doesn’t matter if I feel like someone else is being a jerk, is too arrogant, rude, hurtful, etc.  What matters is that I chose each moment to live for God and honor him through my actions.