Have we been stressed easily? Have we respected and loved people, regardless of their opinions? Both Christians and non-Christians?
Today I would like to talk a little about love and respect! I was talking to my psychologist, who is a Christian, and she showed me that love and respect goes beyond what I thought it was!
Come on?
Constant respect!
“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves,”
Philippians 2: 3
In this conversation with my psychologist, I started talking about relationships with her. Through my speech, she noticed that my attitude / posture changed, depending on who I was talking to.
When I talked to a person who respected herself and was respectful, I was respectful, but when I talked to a person who did not respect herself and was not respectful of others, my behavior was different.
I thought about it a lot and went to research what the Bible said about respect. I found the above verse, which says that we must consider others superior to ourselves, that is, treat absolutely everyone with respect, listen to everyone and love each one of them.
And that is totally related to the way I see myself, whether I respect myself or not.
Do you respect yourself?
“So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.“
Matthew 7:12
Thinking about it, the following thought came to me: if I treat a person thinking / seeing how he treats others, it means two things: I don’t have my character defined, because in each place, with each person, in every circumstance i am a different person.
Furthermore, it means that I don’t respect myself, because if the Bible says I should do to others what I would like them to do to me, and and I don’t respect them, it means that I don’t respect / respect myself .
So I think we should look at the way we treat people around us. For when we respect ourselves, we will not hurt others, we will treat everyone with love and respect. The opposite is also true: if we respect and love everyone in the same way, it means that we respect ourselves.
God loves you!
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”
Jeremiah 29: 11-13
I don’t know if you read the verse I left above, if you haven’t read it, I ask you to read it and, if you read it, read it again. Can you understand the depth and grandeur of this passage?
I believe that this passage can be related to what we are talking about. We follow Christ, we serve the God above all gods, Lord of lords, God of armies, King of kings, God of Israel, right? So, if we follow and serve Him, we should seek to look like Him, right?
So, knowing all these things, I would like to ask a question to reflect on: if the Lord we serve has thoughts of peace, love and prosperity about us, why don’t we think the same way about the people around us? It is nothing new to anyone that God is no respecter of persons or of sin. So why do we keep doing it?
My answer to that is: because we need to learn more about the love of God, to have our character forged in Him and to respect ourselves! I would like us to reflect on that!
Grace and peace!
