The mature way to handle a disagreeable person…

One test of maturity is how you handle disagreeable people who like to quarrel with you. 

An argumentative spirit indicates an ego problem.  If you like to quarrel, if you like to get into arguments, you’ve got an ego problem. 

JESUS says that a person who is meek is happy because he is tender without surrender.  Meekness is learning to disagree agreeably.  Meekness is being able to walk hand in hand without seeing eye to eye. 

In a marriage, when two people agree on everything, one of them isn’t necessary.  You eat with a knife and a fork, not two knives.  We need variety. 

When people disagree with you, you can be passive, a doormat – “Go ahead, have your way.” – or you can fight them tooth and nail, blow up, get angry, fight back, be sarcastic.  Or you can respond in love – a gentle answer.

2 Timothy 2.24-25 (NIV) says meekness is a qualification for spiritual leadership, “The LORD’s servant must not quarrel ... those who oppose him he must gently instruct, in hope that GOD will give them repentance...”

The Bible says that I am not to argue with people.  I am not to get in a quarrel.  I am to gently instruct and hope that GOD will give them a change of heart. 

At our church in Las Vegas, we said, “In the essentials we have unity; in the nonessentials we have liberty; in all things we have charity.” We allowed for diversity in the body of CHRIST.  Different gifts. Different strokes for different folks. 

We need to learn to be understanding, not demanding with people who serve us.  And we need to learn to be gentle, not judgmental with people who let us down.  We let people down. Happy are those who treat others the way GOD treats them.  And we need to be tender without surrender when somebody disagrees with us.

Just a thought from the front porch…