I heard a great message by Pastor Kevin Bennett from Mountain View Baptist in Black Mountain. Their current series is Christmas is For-giving. He took this message a step further Sunday with Christmas is For-going. He challenged the congregation to humble themselves by apoligizing to anyone that they had upset or made mad. He explained that our peers judge us by our actions. We judge ourselves by our intentions. Sometimes the two can produce skewed outcomes and emotions. Sometimes we didn't intend to hurt someone, but our actions did. If you have ever thought you might have offended someone, then you most likely did, so go ahead and clear the air and make amends. As Christians we are suppose to be forgiving and love our neighbor and brother. God forgives us on a daily basis and sacrificed his son to pay the penalty for our sins. Matthew 5:23 says: "So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come offer your gift." God doesn't want you honoring or praising him if your not honoring your neighbor and brother. It says in the scripture that if you can't honor and love someone in the flesh, you definately can't honor someone you have never seen. Pastor Kevin also talked about how we will be in a store and see someone we don't want to take the extra time to talk to, or don't want to talk to them because of other reasons. So we act like we didn't see them, or head in the other direction, or we duck like were hiding from a sniper in battle. We are guilty of this behavior at some point in our lives. However, that doesn't make it right. Everytime we do this we add gasoline to negative thoughts, emotions, attitudes, and relationships. It's kind of like letting a cavity turn into a root canal. If you had addressed the cavity earlier you would have saved some coin and alot of pain. This kind of makes me think of how nice and sincere strangers were right after 9/11. Even Yankees would take the extra second for a smile or pleasant greeting. This behavior lasted a couple of months and then society dove back into their seclusive self centered ideology of life. Lets remember that it is the Christmas season and that we are judged on our actions not our intentions. If you need to apoligize or mend a relationship I encourage you to do it. When you ask, right now, tommorow is not promised. Take the extra time to serve and love others, it will be worth it. I hope that this is enlightening and that you can take something away from it. I know I have!
God Bless!
