Old Keys Don’t Unlock New Doors
Galatians 6:10 When we have the opportunity to do good to anyone, we should do it. But we should give special attention to those who are in the family of believers.
We all have difficult relationships, don’t we? Some seem to fester away year after year without getting any better. The conflict, the hurt, remains. And it robs you of your peace.
So how do you deal with that? Well, most times, when we encounter those people – even when we just think about them – those same old negative emotions rise up and, in a well-worn rut, we respond badly. We cut them off, we ignore them, we show them by the expression on our face and the tone in our voice that we really don’t like them.
We want things to change, we want our peace back, but those negative emotions keep getting the better of us.
Galatians 6:10 When we have the opportunity to do good to anyone, we should do it. But we should give special attention to those who are in the family of believers.
“When we have the opportunity …”. It’s amazing how often God gives us the opportunity. And what does He tell us to do here? To change our emotions, to work on our feelings? Nope, because when you think about it, changing how you feel about someone is all but impossible. No … when we have the opportunity to do good to anyone, we should do it.
Just do good. Look, the same old responses just aren’t going to work. Old keys never open new doors. We need a new key. And the key is simply to do good to those difficult people in our lives at every God-given opportunity … irrespective of how we feel.
Smile at them, encourage them, bless them. And when we do good to them, a funny thing happens. All of a sudden, our feelings change. Old keys don’t open new doors.
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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