Choosing Cooperation Over Conflict: Pursue Peace and Unity

You know, generosity or giving, it really is an outflow of of love. It begins as an outflow of love and we're, it's modeled in scripture in John three sixteen, he says, for god so loved that he gave, right? He modeled that in scripture and so, giving is an outflow of love. It should it should come out of a place of love. Paul actually combats the fact that we shouldn't give out of a heart of obligation or feeling compelled to, right? But it should start as a place of love. [00:26:22] (37 seconds)  #GenerosityIsLove

but for generosity to become a way of life for me, it has to become a habit and so what starts as a thought. Now, we've been talking about this for the last seven weeks. What starts as a thought moves to being an action because we make a choice to act on that thought and then once we make that choice, if we do that long enough, it becomes a habit, right? [00:27:46] (24 seconds)  #MakeGenerosityAHabit

the first part of the chapter, the apostle Paul Paul starts about talking about us being living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to god which are reasonable service, right? And being not being conformed to the world but being transformed by the renewing of our minds, right? And so he's saying, hey, listen. Make yourself a living sacrifice and the way that you are going to live your life in that way is allowing your minds to be transformed. [00:49:28] (27 seconds)  #TransformedMindset

Number three is we're gonna feed the fellowship not the fault lines. Romans fourteen nineteen says this, let us, therefore, let us pursue the things which make for peace and the things by which one may edify another. What if I chose that I'm only going to do what builds other people up. As what he's telling us to do right here. Yeah. [01:24:56] (36 seconds)  #FeedFellowshipNotFaults

I'm going to take a pause. I'm going take a Selah. When I feel my emotions rising and I want to react and I want to argue and I want to tell, I'm going to Selah. Say la. Say la. I'm going to go. I'm going to find a place and sometimes you need to get in the car and leave so you can say la all the way down the road but but whatever you got to do to find your say la, you need to find your say la. [01:14:37] (25 seconds)  #PracticeSelahPause

knowledge is information, understanding is comprehension, and wisdom is application. What do I do with the knowledge and the understanding that I have? Like, what am I, what am I supposed to do with this? Right? Because when I have this understanding of whatever it is, then, I need to do something with it. Wisdom is how I apply it. [01:23:18] (34 seconds)  #WisdomIsApplication

Says in all you're getting, get understanding. What does it mean? Look at all the information so that you understand it fully before you make a decision because what I found out is the people that we vilify, if we went and sat down and had a conversation with that person, is this okay? Okay? If we went and had a conversation with that person, nine times out of 10, we would go. They aren't as bad as we thought they were. [01:22:09] (30 seconds)  #SeekUnderstandingFirst

And one of the things that we, when we first started talking was we're not going to major on the minors. We're going to focus on the things that we places that we're alike more than where we're different, and we're gonna celebrate our differences instead of letting them become a point of contention. And he and I build a very strong relationship during that time. [01:26:32] (30 seconds)  #FocusOnCommonGround