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When Personalities Clash | Thoughts about God.

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When Personalities Clash
“As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” Proverbs 27:17

Have you ever had someone rub you the wrong way? Most of us probably have. No matter how hard we try to like them as a brother or sister in Christ, our personalities clash. We may even pray for God to help us see them as He does, hoping our attitude will be altered. But each and every time they put us on edge and our back teeth clench.

We are to love one another, right? That is the second commandment of Jesus (Mark 12: 31). So why can’t we “just get over it” and love this abrasive person? Perhaps because God is still sharpening us or them.

Often times we see the speck in someone else’s eye because it is similar to the log in our own (Matthew 7:3). People can bring out the worse in us. We see our faults magnified in them without realizing it. Or they may remind us of someone who hurt us in the past. Maybe that irritating trait they exhibit is exactly what God plans to use to help mold us, correct our misunderstanding, or build His love into our hearts, which doesn’t hinge on actions or words. He may use the personality that sets us on edge as a sword to cut away something in us that is keeping us from growing spiritually.

So if someone rubs you the wrong way, perhaps that is a good thing. Even better, it may be a God-thing.

Father God, when someone rubs us the wrong way, let us turn to You for discernment. Because Your son, Jesus, commanded us to love, let us call upon Your Holy Spirit to guide us, sharpen us, and mold us so we may indeed act instead of react. Amen.

By Julie Cosgrove
Used by permission
https://wheredidyoufindgodtoday.com/

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The post When Personalities Clash can be found at Thoughts about God.

October 4 | What Is Living Water?

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Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” She said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do You get that living water?… Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”—John 4:10–11, 13–14

Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well is another opportunity for Him to teach profound spiritual truth through a metaphor. When their conversation began, He was the thirsty one, and she the one with the water. Now He spoke as if she were the thirsty one and He the one with the water. Her confusion is not unexpected. She did not understand Jesus was talking about spiritual realities. The “living water” He offered was salvation in all its fullness.

But she was skeptical of His ability to provide the living water He offered. So Jesus patiently answered her skeptical question: “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” Here was Jesus offering her the living water of spiritual life to quench her parched, needy soul.

ASK YOURSELF  
What activities of Jesus in your life share some common qualities with water—its clarity, its refreshment, its cleansing, its sustenance, its replenishment? Praise Him for each of these things as He brings them to mind.1   1  MacArthur, J. (2008). Daily readings from the life of Christ (p. 286). Moody Publishers.