Treating people with respect

1 Samuel 25: ⁸ Ask your own servants and they will tell you. Therefore be favorable toward my men, since we come at a festive time. Please give your servants and your son David whatever you can find for them.’”

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¹⁰ Nabal answered David’s servants, “Who is this David? Who is this son of Jesse? Many servants are breaking away from their masters these days. ¹¹ Why should I take my bread and water, and the meat I have slaughtered for my shearers, and give it to men coming from who knows where?”

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¹⁸ Abigail acted quickly. She took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five dressed sheep, five seahs of roasted grain, a hundred cakes of raisins and two hundred cakes of pressed figs, and loaded them on donkeys. ¹⁹ Then she told her servants, “Go on ahead; I’ll follow you.” But she did not tell her husband Nabal.

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² David said to Abigail, “Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, who has sent you today to meet me. ³³ May you be blessed for your good judgment and for keeping me from bloodshed this day and from avenging myself with my own hands. ³⁴ Otherwise, as surely as the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, who has kept me from harming you, if you had not come quickly to meet me, not one male belonging to Nabal would have been left alive by daybreak.”

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“Excuse me” were the soft spoken words uttered to me.  I acknowledged the person but I couldn’t fulfill their request because I was extremely busy.  I then forgot their request, but I’m sure he asked someone else. Besides, “who was this guy anyway?”  He was dressed in a lumberjack style shirt and jeans!

As the meeting commenced, the Senior Vice President introduced some special people that was in our audience.  Wouldn’t you know, that lumberjack shirt guy was “the special person and one of the wealthiest individuals in the room?

• My immediate assumptions about people can cause me to think the wrong thing.
• My filtered impression about a person may cause me to think the wrong thing.
• My prejudiced view of a person may cause me to think the wrong thing.

When I see a person from the wrong perspective, I may not give them the respect they deserve. This behavior may have dire consequences that I may not be aware of.

• GOD wants me to treat everyone with the same level of high respect in order to draw them to HIM.
• GOD wants me to treat everyone with the same level of respect because HE sees people equally.
• GOD wants me to treat everyone with the same level of admiration in order for me to see what HE sees in them.

GOD has a purpose for each person and wants me to respect the beauty HE made inside of them.

• Are you treating someone wrong?
• Do you have a negative view of a person?
• Can you start treating that person with respect?

I know how you feel

Revelation 2: ⁹ I know your afflictions and your poverty—yet you are rich! I know about the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.

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My parents had given me five dollars to go to the amusement park. Somewhere between here and there I lost my money. I cried and cried because my possibilities of having a fun day turned out to be disastrous.

Now as I look back on this incident I find it humorous. I mean I have traveled to other countries and have seen people who wonder where their next meal is going to come from. How in the world can the poor be rich?

• When I think I am poor I am usually blinded by my ambitions rather than GOD’s blessings.
• When I think I am afflicted I am focused on the ailment or the wound rather than GOD’s sovereignty.
• When I think I am finished I have given up too quickly because my faith in GOD has waned.

There are some situations that are more difficult than others but each time I look back on them I realize GOD was there watching over me. I can’t lie and say I felt this way during the trial, but after I have gone through it I felt stronger.

• GOD says “I know your afflictions” so HE knows when my body is sick or hurt.
• GOD says “I know your poverty” so HE knows when I worry about finances.
• GOD says “Yet you are rich!” so HIS view of being rich is thoroughly different than mine.

Being “rich” is having a large “bank account” of people. The more people I help, the larger my account grows. My account grows even larger when I can help others praise GOD even when I am going through a very tumultuous time. GOD says “I know” which means HE has understands the trial is difficult but HE has it in control and will not let it destroy my soul.

GOD’s plan is sovereign and full of love. Though trials appear my faith in GOD grows.

• Are you facing a trial?
• Are you feeling nervous about your finances?
• Do you believe GOD knows what you are going through?
• Can you stop listening to what “they” are saying about you and focus on how GOD made you perfect for HIS purpose?

I’m going to take you down!

John 11: ⁴⁷ Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin.

   “What are we accomplishing?” they asked. “Here is this man performing many signs. ⁴⁸ If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation.”

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“It’s not personal, it’s business” was the lesson taught to me by many leaders. We purposefully excluded someone so we could discuss taking over their project. First the transition plan was built in secret then the communication as to why the leader of the project was no longer leading the project. It wasn’t personal as I effectively built a smear campaign to take the person down.

• It’s easy to hurl insults at others.
• It’s easy to get a group together to drag someone down.
• It’s easy to whine and moan about someone to get sympathy or to get my way.

The same tactics were used to eliminate our positions as well. In business and politics, credibility must be attacked and we were not excluded from this truth. Many would say it has made me a better leader and they are probably right, but I would say it has made me a better follower.

• Business says point out flaws, GOD says build people up.
• Business says keep attacking their weaknesses; GOD says strengthen those who can’t do for themselves.
• Business says make them look bad and me look good, GOD says whoever calls someone an idiot, they will have to deal with ME.

The Pharisees wanted to kill JESUS for helping people, healing people and mostly, raising people from the dead. Their wealthy lifestyle was at stake so they created the best smear campaign they could imagine. It wasn’t personal, just business! When I behave like this, GOD accounts for all my actions.

• Do you think your sin is smaller than someone else’s sin?
• Do you think that just because someone’s sins are in the news, your hidden sins are not being watched?
• Have you developed a smear campaign of your own for “that” person?
• Won’t you take GOD’s example and build “that” person up