If you want to win people over, you won’t do it with a holier-than-thou attitude. That’s how society sees many folks in today’s world. Their hearts are in the right place, but their ability to relate with compassion to those outside their immediate circle does God no favors. If you want people to respond to you favorably, learn from what Apostle Paul says in the Bible.
Paul voluntarily became a servant to all in order to reach a wide range of people. This included those who were religious, nonreligious, moralists, immoralists, the defeated, and the demoralized as seen in his first writings to the Corinthians. Paul’s work as a servant leader did not make him soft on wrong-doing but rather it equipped him to appreciate those who had different ideas and opinions.
He could relate to others because he had been transformed and he was able to reach a wide range of people. He could endorse other lifestyle because he remembered what he himself was like before God transformed him on the Damascus Road.
It is the kind of humility that only comes from looking back and remembering where you have come from. All of us should look back every now again to remember the pitfalls that we overcame in our life. No one has been without fault! No one can claim to be better than someone else because of their position in life.
From time to time, we must remind ourselves that we live in a multicultural society where people come from all over the world with different thoughts and ideals. Within our own culture there are people whose see our own ideals and beliefs as different just as we do theirs.
Here is a thought that you can take to heart…You could never had made it apart from sheer mercy from God. So today remember what you used to be like and how you have been transformed. It might help to ensure that your heart is in the right place. So, Never Give Up! Never Give Up! Never Give Up!
By Dr. Walter Ghosten
chaplain@lhp.net
