Getting Along With Yourself Series

THE AWESOME POWER OF ATTITUDE, PART TWO

"GETTING ALONG WITH

THE MOST SIGNIFICANT PERSON IN YOUR LIFE"

Question; Do you know who is the most significant person in your life?

The person we are going to talk about today is the key to all of your relationships. If you don’t have a good attitude toward this person, you are not going to get along very well with anyone.

J Martin Kohe in his book, "Your Greatest Power," tells about an explorer who went to the wilds of Africa. He took a number of trinkets with him for the natives. Among the trinkets were 2 full length mirrors. He placed these mirrors against 2 trees and sat down to talk to some of his men about the exploration.

While talking, the explorer noticed that a savage approached the mirror with a spear in his hand. As he looked into the mirror He saw his refection. He began to jab at his opponent in the mirror as though he was a real person, going through all the motions of killing him. Of course, he broke the mirror into pieces. Seeing this, the explorer walked over to savage and asked why he had smashed the mirror, The native replied, "He go kill me. I kill him first."

All of the trouble however, was with the native himself. It was caused by his own faulty thinking.

When it comes to getting along with others; most of our problems are caused because we are our own worst enemy. If we are to master, the art of getting along, we must learn how to feel good about ourselves.

Now, God expects us to feel good about ourselves, in fact, he said we are to love ourselves first, then and only then can we truly have a good loving relationship with others. It can be summed up in this one commandment, "Love others as you love yourself..." (Gal 5:14 LB)

It is clear from this commandment that you are really unable to love others if you cannot love yourself.

Now we are not talking about love in a selfish Narcissistic kind of way, but rather a love where we like ourselves and have a healthy attitude about ourselves...

Tragically though when some people look in the mirror, they do not like what they see -- they like the native see an enemy, an obstacle, a problem. But understand the problem is not in the mirror - it is not in ourselves but it is in our own faulty thinking about ourselves.

Someone has said,

IF YOU DON’T A HAVE A GOOD ATTITUDE

TOWARDS YOURSELF,

YOUR NEIGHBOR IS IN BIG TROUBLE....

And that’s true, people who don’t like themselves can be very dangerous and unpleasant people to be around.

Today, we want to talk about 4 attitudes that you need to choose and then cultivate in order for you to get along with yourself and in turn get along with others.

ATTITUDE #1 BE A FORGIVING PERSON

3 of the most beautiful and most powerful words in all of the world are, "I am forgiven."

QUESTION; WHO IS THE HARDEST PERSON FOR YOU TO FORGIVE?

Sometimes the hardest person for us to forgive is ourselves. Far too many people become there own judge, jury and executioner, continuing to inflict blow upon blow of self-condemnation upon themselves.

Understand that nothing destroys one’s self-esteem more than a depressing recall of shameful deeds and re-runs of past failures.

It’s a burden far too large for any of us to carry.

It weighs us down...

And it can result in continual trouble brewing from the inside.

QUESTION; IS THERE SOMETHING YOU HAVE NOT FORGIVEN YOURSELF FOR?

Are there some past failures you just keep on re-running in your mind, recalling and reliving that defeat you leaving you immobilized.

A large fruit tree blew over in a storm. When the farmer was asked what he was going to do about it, he declared, "You see, it has fruit on the branches. I’m going to gather the fruit. Then I will burn the tree, plant a new tree and move on..."

Sometimes experiences, relationships and situations in our lives are uprooted by the storms that descend upon us -- and often times those storms are self-produced.

But understand, every one those experiences still has some fruit for us. Some lessons for us to learn.

But once we’ve learned the lesson, once we have picked the fruit from it’s branches it’s time for us to burn that tree (that failure, that sin..etc) plant a new tree and then move on... It does no good for you to stare at fallen tree and simply watch the remaining fruit die, leaves wither and branches crumble.

pick-burn-move on

If you have done wrong ask God for forgiveness, and then accept His forgiveness by forgiving yourself...