Joyce Meyer - How To Love People That Are Hard To Love?

TOPICS: Love

I'm gonna teach tonight on How to Love People That Are Hard to Love. Yeah, well, we just hit a home run, didn't we? Pastor Mike asked me, he said, "And what provoked that message in your heart? Did you have, like, a personal experience"? I said, "Well, I like to let other people benefit from what I go through, so". Most of our problems in life are with people. I mean really, if you get right down to it, I mean, just think how much happier you would be if all the people would just do what you want 'em to do. And just behave the way you want 'em to behave.

Now, you know, we do have other kinds of problems, but there's just a lot of people problems. And so, the first thing that I wanna tell you is one of the ways that you can just save yourself a lot of misery, a lot of hardship, a lot of heartache, 'cause I can tell you, you will have opportunity to be offended. There's no "You might", you will. You will have people that will hurt your feelings. You will have people that will say and do things, and you just might think, "What in the world is your problem"?

Now, believe it or not, and I actually believe what I'm getting ready to tell you, 'cause I've had lots of experience with lots of people, I really don't believe that there's many people, and maybe there's nobody, who gets up in the morning and thinks, "I just can't wait to see how many people I can make miserable today". I mean, I just don't think that people do that. And I think that most of the pain that we get from other people are a result of their own pain. You're not all ready to swallow that, huh?

"Sounds to me, Joyce, like you're getting ready to ask me to feel sorry for 'em". Well, no, but my father hurt me so bad, and he hurt my mom so bad, and my brother. And thank God through his grace I was able to recover and still have a decent life, but my mom never had a decent life. My brother ended up committing suicide. And just, he just hurt so many people so bad, but you know what? He was a hurting man. He was a miserable, hurting man. And when you're miserable yourself inside, it's gonna come out somewhere and it's gonna come out on somebody.

Now, that doesn't mean that it's okay for people to do that. It doesn't mean that we just let them abuse us and don't confront them or take up for ourself. That's really, to be honest, that's not even what forgiveness is. It's just not. But one thing that we are commanded to do in the Bible, it's not a suggestion, come on, the things that Jesus said are not suggestions. Ha ha. They're commandments. And not all of them are things that will keep us out of heaven if we don't obey them, because we're saved by grace through faith. But the things that God tells us to do, every single one of them are something for our benefit.

Come on now. Every single thing that God tells us to do, he's not trying to make it hard on us. He's not trying to give us impossible things to do. Which most people would tell you that one of the hardest things that they ever have to do is forgive somebody who really hurt them really bad, amen? And we just think it's not fair, and how could God ask us to do that, and on, and on, and on. But he's really trying to help us by doing that. And so, since we have all these people in the world and we've already established that they're not all gonna be nice to us, and then we see that there's a command that we have to love them. Now, I wish that the Bible said, "Love the people that are lovable". But it doesn't. We have to somehow learn how to love people that are very difficult to love. So, how many of you are in tonight and you wanna go on with this?

1. All right, so. The first point, and this has helped me and is helping me, because of what happened that provoked me to preach this message that I'm not at liberty to tell you about, and it's not about Dave, and I really believe that people don't get up every day just purposely trying to be mean and see how many people they can make miserable, I have decided that I'm actually really gonna make an effort to do what Jesus said to do in 1 Corinthians 13:5, and that is, "Love, always and is ever ready to believe the best of every person".

Okay, I guess I'll have to do that again, 'cause I can tell when you get it and when you don't. Now, see, I can believe, "Well, you just did that on purpose", or I can believe, "Maybe you must be having a bad day. I doubt you even realized how that sounded. I really don't believe you meant to hurt me. Maybe something's going on in your life and it really has nothing to do with me".

Now, here again, I'm not saying that we just let people abuse us, and there's certainly a time to confront people, and I'm all over that. You know, I don't have any problem with confrontation. That is not an issue for me. I could maybe use a little bit of the other side sometimes. But it's amazing how we are relieved from having to waste a day being angry at somebody if we'll just immediately say, "Lord, help me believe the best". That's point number one. Help me believe the best.

Now, a few opening scriptures. Matthew 5:46-47 says, "If we only love those who love us back", that's nothing. It says, "Even the gentiles do that". They were the unbelievers then, so you know, it doesn't take the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives, which we have as believers. We don't need that power to just love people that are nice to us. Okay, I got one person over there that likes this. We have to get all the "I can't" thinking out of our head. It's not "I can't love you".

If Jesus told me to love you, then I can love you. I may not know how to do it yet, but I have the power and you have the power of the Holy Spirit to do everything that God has commanded you to do. You can do it. And furthermore, we are here to represent God. That's the whole reason why he left us here. If God didn't have a purpose for us here, after we're born again, he would just beam us up and we could miss the whole mess. But we're here because the Bible says that we are God's personal representatives.

Now, get this. The amplified says, "He is making his appeal to the world through us". So, people are supposed to look at us and see how God is. And that's supposed to make them thirsty, we're salt, and it's supposed to pierce the darkness in their life, we are light. And so, the Bible says in Matthew that when we love our enemies and those who are mean to us and abusive to us, that we do it to show that we are like our father in heaven. God will never ask us to forgive somebody else for more than what he's forgiven us for.

You say, "Yeah, but this person just keeps doing the same thing over, and over, and over again". Well, so what do you think the next time you say, "Oh Lord, I'm so sorry". Do you think that they have a little council in heaven? "Now, you know, they have done this over, and over, and over, and over again, and I just don't know that I can forgive them one more time". No, Peter said, "Maybe I can handle seven. Up to seven times, Lord". And he gave a figure that's really just a bunch of God's perfect number, 7 times 70. So, you know, here we're already at 490, and really it just simply means however much it takes.

Remember, it's actually more for you than it is for your enemy. It is more for you than it is for your enemy, 'cause here's the thing. I saw this in a movie not too long ago and it just really struck me. This person had just been so unbelievably mistreated and they forgave the person that had hurt them. And it was a man who had been hurt so bad, so they were married now, and his wife said to him, "How can you possibly forgive them"? And he said, "Well, if you forgive, you only have to forgive once and it's over. But if you hate, you have to do that all day long, every day of your life".

So, I think there's a few folks here, and maybe a whole bunch that will watch this by television, that you got some stuff that's really hurting you and you need to get it taken care of. Let God help you get it taken care of. You know, maybe somebody hurt you, they're not in your life anymore, and you don't have to put up with 'em, so maybe getting over it wouldn't be quite as hard. What if it's somebody at work, or somebody that you still gotta be around, somebody that you gotta deal with? Now it gets a whole lot harder. But we have as much of the Holy Spirit as we need to help us do everything that we need to do, amen?

Now, I don't think that anybody is a real Christian. They might have a bumper sticker on their car, or a fish, or wear a cross around their neck, or go to church every Sunday, but I don't know that I personally, with the experience I've had with God all these years, I don't know that I can say that I believe that a person is a real Christian if they're not at some point in time in their spiritual growth gonna get around to realizing the importance of loving other people, because it is all over the Bible.

You say, "Well, yeah, but my salvation's not based on me loving other people". Well, no, it's not. It's definitely not. But there's a scripture in 1 John 4:7-8 that we either need to pay attention to or I don't know, you know? Listen to this, 1 John 4:7, "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is (and it springs) from God: and he who loves is fellow man is begotten (and born) of God". So, he who loves his fellow man is born of God, "And is coming progressively to know and understand God to perceive and recognize and get a better and a clearer knowledge of him". Now, verse 8, "He who does not love has not become acquainted with God does not and never did know him, for God is love".

So now, I can go to church and I can have a knowledge. I can believe Jesus died on the cross for me. But to know God, and you know, the apostle Paul prayed, and this is a man who wrote two-thirds of the New Testament, and he said, "My determined purpose is to know him". To know God, to know his character, to hang out with God, to do life with God, to have an intimacy and a friendship with God, that's what we need. That's what we want, not just to go to church, and go home, and be the same, and never change. But it's that relationship with God that Jesus died for us to have. And in order to have that, once we're born again, once we believe in Jesus and we receive him, then the rest of our life should be spent on spiritual maturity and becoming more, and more, and more, and more, and more deeply and intimately acquainted with God. I want to know God and be like him. Amen?

And so, he says. "If you don't know love, then you don't know me, because I am love". So, I think we can say the more we learn how to love, the more we're gonna learn about God. And I want closeness with God. I want an intimacy with God. And we know that the Bible says that if you won't forgive those who have hurt you, then neither will your Heavenly Father forgive you. Now, that's kind of scary. I wonder how many people there are running around that are pretty sure their sins have been forgiven, but they're mad at half of the world. And I think if we harbor bad feelings towards somebody else, whether it's for an hour, or a day, or 25 years, what we're doing is we're putting something between us and God.

No wonder he says, "A new commandment I give unto you". This sums up all the law and all the prophets. You focus on this one, you do this one, and you're gonna keep all the others. "Love one another, just as I have loved you. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples". Let's major in love. I got all stirred up about this many years ago, and I thought, "We need a revolution of love". So, I've got access to a lot of people. I'm getting full of myself. I'm thinking, "I'm gonna start a revolution of love". I wrote a book, and we had a plan, and we had a program, and it was the worst-selling book I have ever written in my whole life. It was pitiful. And I thought, "What"?

But you know what, here's the bottom line. The book didn't sell that well because it's not a subject that people are that interested in. Now, you put out a book on ten steps to success. But what kind of success do we wanna be? Do we wanna be an earthly success or do we want to be a success spiritually? Do we wanna be well-known in the earth or well-known in heaven? Amen? So, yes, the book is still available, and we probably don't even have any with us, but I dare you to get online and get it. Anyway, now, here's a great scripture. If you think that you cannot love people, "I just cannot love them the way they are. Now, I mean, I just can't. God, you gotta change them if you want me to love them".

One more scripture, then I'm going to point two. Romans 5:8, "But God shows and clearly proves his own love for us by the fact that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us". How many of you are glad that it doesn't say, "Once we got ourselves all cleaned up"? Oh my gosh, the thing that is so inviting about Jesus is I can stand here tonight and tell people, no matter where you're at in life, no matter what you've done, no matter how deep of a pit you're in, God will take you just the way you are. He loves you just the way you are.

Now, he doesn't want us to stay that way. God loves us too much to let us stay that way and we need to change. And yes, there are people in our lives that need to change, but sadly, many of them are never going to if all we do is build walls, and shut them out, and stay angry at 'em, and get bitter and resentful. You know, we talk about sacrifice, and some of us just need to sacrifice a little bit of our personal comfort maybe just to be around somebody that maybe is not all that easy to be around with. I mean, I don't know about you, I can get pretty addicted to my creature comforts. Okay, so now I got a question to put out to you, 'cause you know, God's asking me this, so I'll just share it with you.

Are the people that you're having a hard time loving, are they really that bad or are you just maybe a little too picky? For example, I don't do slow very well. I mean, I'm like, I can do more things in 1 hour than most people could do in a week. And I mean, I think fast, I make fast decisions, I move fast. So, I just don't do slow people real well. So, ha ha. Never mind they're, you know, usually a lot nicer than me. But anyway, the point is, so, I'm just giving you that as an example is that, you know, I can get impatient. And it's not... I got some self-control now. I don't just, like, you know, rail all over everybody, but inside, I'm like...

How many in the building have at least learned to keep it inside? But see, I'm wanting to get to the point where it's not there. I don't wanna have to swallow it down, I just don't want it to be there. And yes, we're growing, we're changing, and we go from glory to glory, and thank God we're not what we used to be, and you know, I'm happy for the growth, but... So, really, I have to ask myself, "Well, is there something wrong with them because they're moving slower"? Come on, now. Or is there something wrong with me that I'm moving a little too fast?

Now, I know another somebody. This is not me, but another somebody, and they don't do well with trying to teach people things. "Well, you saw me do it. Why didn't you get it? I told you once. How many times I gotta tell ya? Well, I told you what to do and you still did it wrong". And so, this person is just not a very good teacher because... And here it comes, they expect everybody to learn as fast as they do, but everybody don't. And the thing we gotta realize is if you have a quick brain, it's because God gave it to you. It's not because you're better than, or smarter than, or above. You got it as a gift from God and he gave it to you for a purpose, but the purpose was not to look down on other people who aren't like you.

2. So, point number two, if we want to love people that are difficult to love, the first thing we need to do is pray for ourselves to have a proper attitude before we ever bother to pray for them to change. And I'm serious. I learned a long time ago, I do not go to God and pray for my husband to change without approaching the throne in this fashion, "Lord, this thing is really hard for me and I obviously I would like you to work in Dave's life". Hi babe. He usually sits down here. He's up here tonight 'cause he's got a cough and if he started coughing, he wanted to escape quickly, however, he's now closer to me so if I say much, he can come up here and take the microphone.

But first I will pray now, "Lord, maybe, I'm not even seeing this right. I may be the one with the problem. And so, first of all, deal with me". Don't ever go to God in prayer about somebody else's faults if you don't go with a humble attitude, amen? That's just not a very safe thing to do because just because we think we know what's wrong with somebody doesn't mean that we do, amen? Ooh, this is better than I thought it might be. Pray that we will see our own faults, because if we do it will make it much easier to be patient with the weaknesses of others because when we see our own faults, it brings a degree of humility into our lives.

Matthew 7:3, "Why do you stare from without at the very small particle that's in your brother's eye"? Let me give it to you, I think it's the living Bible. "Why do you stare from without at the toothpick that's in your brother's eye, but you don't become aware of the telephone pole that's in your eye"? And that's, just imagine if there were two people up here, one had a toothpick sticking out of his eye and another one had a telephone pole sticking out of his eye, and the guy with the telephone pole sticking out of his eye is trying to correct the guy with the toothpick in his eye. And actually, if you go and read all those scriptures in Matthew 7, I mean, it gets really good because he said, "Go first and get the telephone pole out of your own eye, then you will see clearly how to take the toothpick out of your brother's eye".

See, we really don't know how to help people properly. There's no compassion, no gentleness if we've got a bigger mess in our life than they do but we're blind to our faults and only see theirs. Maybe there's just somebody listening in here by tv. Maybe you could just think about this a little bit. Maybe you could just think about all those people you don't like and you could just maybe ask yourself, is it even remotely possible? I mean, I know it would be very remote but is it even remotely possible that I could have more problems than they do? Hmm, well, I'll just leave that with you. Now, you'll like this one better.

3. Number three, pray for the person who's being difficult to get along with. Yes, thank you. But don't pray for them to change just to make it easier for you but pray for them to be all that God wants them to be. So, pray for the person with humility realizing but for the grace of God there go i. Romans 12:3, "For by the grace", I love how Paul approaches this. He's getting ready to correct the Romans and he says, "By the grace of God, I warn everyone among you not to think more highly of yourself than you ought to". So, he didn't just go in there and start telling them off. He said, "Look, I'm only coming to you and daring to tell you this because God has given me a grace to do this.

And so, I'm telling you don't think more highly of yourself than you ought to. Don't have an exaggerated opinion of your own importance". And, you know, honestly and truly, sometimes being judgmental of other people, it is a mechanism that we come up with to not have to deal with our own problems. As long as I stay busy thinking about what's wrong with you, I don't have to deal with what might be going on in my own life. So, I've kind of found out in my many years of experience of doing a whole bunch of stuff wrong, and hopefully learning to do a lot of it right now, that I really need to spend less time on other people and more time on me. Amen?

"Don't have an exaggerated opinion of your own importance but rate your ability with sober judgment, each according to the degree of faith apportioned by God to him". Pray for people, I'm just gonna give you a few ways to pray for people. Pray that God will help them be all he wants them to be, to do what he wants them to do. Pray that God will open their eyes that they actually can see and recognize when they hurt other people. 'cause they don't see it. They didn't get up that day planning to hurt you. Pray that God will help them get to the root of their problem because behavior modification is not the answer.

You can be in a relationship with somebody and you can say, "If you don't do this and this, I'm leaving". Well, maybe out of fear, they'll straighten up and be able to change something for a period of time, but you've all had the experience, it comes back. It pops up again somewhere else because just behavior modification is not what people need. They need a heart change. They need a nature change. And if they've got so many problems in their life that they can't see God themselves, then they need to see us act like God. And it is a sacrifice. I am gonna talk to you a little bit this weekend about being willing to live a little more sacrificially for the sake of the Gospel.

Listen, we're not gonna be here forever. Jesus is gonna come back and maybe pretty soon, the ways things are looking, I don't know. But when it's over, honey, it's over. There's no do-overs. And I want to really make an effort to take as many people to heaven with me as I possibly can. So, if I have to keep forgiving the same person over and over and over and over, or I have to keep believing the best, believing the best, believing the best, believing the best.

Now, we all need to see a little progress, there's no doubt about that. I really believe that you can kill the meanness in people with kindness. I mean, I proved that with my own father, and it's too long of a story to get into right now but many of you've heard me testify about how God put it on my heart to take care of him and my mother until they died. And if anybody in the room thinks I wanted to do that or thought it was fair, you have got another thing coming because I did not. But it was the single most powerful thing that I've ever done in my whole life. And my Father's in heaven getting to hear the message tonight, so isn't that good news?

Pray for discernment. We need more discernment. We are too much off the top of our head. "You did this", we need to pray for discernment. Discernment goes deeper than just what we see or what we think. You remember Jesus when the woman was caught in adultery and they were trying to trap him 'cause they knew he, you know, was this big love guy now here she's broken the law and the law says you gotta stone her. So now, okay, Mr. Love, what are you gonna say about this one? And so, he knelt down on the ground and the Bible says he wrote in the dirt with his finger. Now, what's that all about? You know, what?

And then he slowly gets up and he says, "Well, I'll tell ya what, let which ever one of you has no sin throw the first stone". You know what I believe he was doing, this is my personal opinion but I believe that he was taking just enough time to hear from his Father about the just right way to handle that situation. What would happen in our lives and in our families instead of just... "Well, if you do that again, I'm out of here and if you"...

I mean, we all know that don't work. I mean, when my kids were teenagers, I screamed at them and my son would roll his eyes at me, and there's nothing that I disliked worse than a teenager whose eyes rolled back in their head every time you try to correct them, or when their room looks like a slop house and you say, "Clean this up", and they're like, "What's wrong with it"? But it didn't change 'em. You can scream at your kids till you don't have a voice left, it's just gonna make 'em hate you. But through more discernment, through more prayer, through more realizing what you were like at that age. Oh, no, you were all perfect when you were 12 and 13, 14. I mean, I did some dumb stuff when I was a kid.

Pray for more discernment. Take a little more time with things. Whoo, I'm praying, I'm praying, praying, praying. You can pray for me. I'm praying that I can just think before I open my mouth and say somethin'. Now, not up here when I'm preaching 'cause, you know, I believe God's speaking through me. I don't have to think. I just open my mouth and out it comes. But, you know, man, when I'm dealing with people sometimes I'm like uh, "Why didn't I just shut up for a few minutes"? All right, number four, you're not gonna like this one but it's gonna be part of it.

4. Number four way to love people that are hard to love, you gotta be ready. You gotta get up ready to forgive them often. You know, if you're with somebody that's fairly obnoxious, there's not much of a chance of getting through a whole day so you need to make your mind up before it ever starts, "I'm gonna forgive you. You are not gonna beat me. The devil working through you is not gonna beat me. I've got more love. I have got more love than you've got meanness".

Here again, I'm not saying that, you know. I like, "Okay, let's bring it down a notch. You don't need to talk to me like that". There's nothing wrong with that. I'm not talking about not confronting people's bad behavior, but what I am talking about is not then building walls around yourself and keeping them out of your life thinking you're protecting yourself from ever getting hurt again. Gotta keep in mind that if you wall people out, you wall yourself in. Be ready to forgive 'em often. "Seven times, I can do seven, Lord". No Peter, just over and over and over and over and over. "Forgiving one another", Ephesians 4:32 says, "Forgiving one another readily and freely as God in Christ has forgiven you". You will never and I will never have to forgive somebody else for more than Jesus has had to forgive me for. Every day, every day, every day, every day, every day.

5. All right, number five, be willing to cover their sin. 1 Peter 4:8, "Above all things have intense and unfailing love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins forgives and disregards the offenses of others". What does it mean to cover somebody's sin? Well, I believe it means don't expose their faults to somebody else. Gonna read you a story in Genesis 9 about Noah and his sons. Ten verses, you think you can keep up with ten verses here? "The sons of Noah who went forth from the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Ham was the father of Canaan who was born later. These are the three sons of Noah, and from them the whole earth was overspread and stocked with inhabitants. And Noah began to cultivate the ground, and he planted a vineyard".

This is after the flood and now the flood's gone so now they're gonna start life all over again. And he plants a vineyard. "And he drank of the wine and got drunk, and he was uncovered and lay naked in his tent". Yes, Noah was a great man, but he had faults. "And Ham, the father of Canaan, who was not born yet, glanced at and saw the nakedness of his father and ran and told his two brothers. So those two brothers Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on their shoulders, and went backward into the tent and covered the nakedness of their father: and their faces were backward, making the point twice that they didn't even look at his nakedness".

So, one son exposed it, two covered it. "When Noah awoke from his wine, and knew the thing that his youngest son had done, he exclaimed, cursed be Canaan"! The child who would be born later, "He shall be the servant of servants to his brethren! And he also said, blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem! And and blessed by the Lord my God be Shem! And let Canaan be his servant. May God enlarge Japheth: and let him dwell in the tents of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant. And Noah lived after the flood another 350 years".

So, what's he saying? He blessed the son and the future children of the two who covered his sin. A blessing will come in your life if you keep what people do to you between you and God. It's hard 'cause we don't want to hurt by ourself. When we're hurting, we wanna tell somebody. "You are not gonna believe". And you know what? This has been my experience, when people tell me anything unkind or ungodly about somebody else, it is very challenging even though they didn't do it to me, for it not to in some way, shape, or form, affect my attitude toward that person. And we don't have the right to do that. If you study the words "Bless" and "Curse", part of the root definition of the word "Bless" actually says in the Greek to speak well of and to curse means to speak evil of. The Bible tells us not to be talebearers, not to be faultfinders.

Now, there are times when you need to talk about something somebody has done, obviously. We have to do that at the ministry sometimes. Somebody's done thus and so and thus and so, we've gotta deal with it. We got a problem, leadership has to talk about it. I'm not talking about not dealing with things that need to be dealt with but I am talking about not gossiping and just spreading stuff about people just because we're angry and we just really don't want anybody else to think well of them either.

Isn't it aggravating when somebody has really hurt you and you hear somebody else talking about what a great guy they are? I mean, you talk about something that will grate on you. You're like, "Yeah well, I can tell you a few things". I'll tell you a great prayer you gotta pray all the time. "Lord, help me keep my mouth shut, help me keep my mouth shut. God, help me keep my mouth shut. Please God, please, help me keep my mouth shut". That's one of my favorite prayers. "Lord, help me my, mmm, mmm, mmm". So, isn't that amazing? He blessed, not just the two boys, but their descendants. I don't know, is there any chance that what we do affects our kids? Of course it does. You gossip about people, they're gonna do the same thing.

6. All right now, number six was bless and do not curse them, which we've kind of covered. But Romans 12:14 says, "Bless those who persecute you who are cruel in their attitude toward you: bless and do not curse them". And as I said, although there are times when it is necessary to talk about something, let's look at the Matthew 18:15, "And if your brother wrongs you, go and show him his fault, between you and him privately. And if he listens to you, you have won back your brother". Then it goes on to say, "If he does not listen, take one more with you. If he still doesn't listen, take two or three. If he still doesn't listen, tell it to the church".

One of the hardest things for me is when somebody comes to me, maybe especially if it's somebody that works for me or even if it's maybe a family situation sometimes. "Well, so and so and so did thus and so and thus and so". Well, now it's something I can't let go knowing that they did it, I gotta deal with it. And then comes the sentence I hate, "But don't tell 'em you got it from me". Well, don't go giving somebody else a problem if you don't have the courage to deal with it yourself. All that amounts to is, "I don't want them getting mad at me but it's okay with me if you get mad at you".

Well, so then you're trying to make me out a liar 'cause what I am gonna say when they say, "Who told you"? Let me say again, so many problems could be avoided if we would go in a right spirit, a spirit of humility, a spirit of love. You know, one of the things that I've learned to do, and this is just a good thing to do, whether you're gonna correct your kids or somebody else you have authority over, instead of just going right into what they did wrong, you might wanna start by telling them a few things they did right.

Then I like to do this too, I like to somewhere in the conversation tell the person some of the stupid stuff I've done in my life, then talk to them about their stupid stuff. It actually does help. It really does help. "I know I have problems, I've made plenty of mistakes myself and listen, there's a ton of things that you're great at, you do right, but we do have an issue that we need to talk about". It's different than going in a room and starting to rail on somebody about everything that they've done wrong. Is anybody agreeing with this?

7. Number seven, this is kind of an ouchie one too. If the opportunity arises, help the person that has been difficult to deal with when they have a need. Luke 6:27 through 32, this is gonna take 5 verses. "But I say to you who are listening now to me: in order to heed, make it a practice to love your enemies, treat well (do good to, act nobly toward) those who detest you and pursue you with hatred, invoke blessings upon and pray for the happiness"... "Lord, are you sure you meant happiness"? But see, here's the thing that God's taught me about that, when you pray for somebody that's living wrong to be blessed or to be happy, there's no way they can be without confronting their issues. So, it's really a sneaky, kind of a spiritual way of saying, "Lord, make 'em face their stuff".