How To Resolve Conflicts

How To Resolve Conflicts

by Olga Hermans

 

Wherever we are, whatever we do; anywhere we are together with people, we have opportunity for conflicts. We have a choice to make whether we choose to resolve the conflict or we suppress the issue and go on. It is very imperative that we know how to resolve conflict in relationships, how to resolve conflict in marriage, what are causes of conflict. It is a very important for our own good that we know what to do in the middle of a conflict.

Jesus called us in Matthew 5:9 to be peacemakers. He said “blessed are the peacemakers”, the reward is that people will call you a Christian! So, if you are not a peacemaker, I guess the opposite is true and they won’t call you a Christian.

It says: “you are called the children of God”; that means that you are identified by the world. The world wants to see a difference in us; in our behavior as well as in our words! Hebr.12:14-15 says “Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to causes trouble and defile many”. NIV We have to choose to make an effort!

When we get born again and we surrender our hearts to Jesus; we have peace with God and that is an awesome feeling. I remember that feeling very well, it was an overwhelming feeling. After that many of us come to realization though that we are not always that peaceful person that we thought salvation would bring with it.  We know that Christ is in us; He is the prince of Peace and he should be governing our life. But there have been times that we have been out of peace.

But he says “make every effort”. You have to make an effort to be a peaceful person, because peace doesn’t just happen just because you got saved. You still have to do something; you still have to make the effort to live at peace.

Be at peace with all men means your spouse, your family, your church and the people you work with. Wherever you are, strangers; you are a peacemaker. You try to create peace wherever you go.

And be holy! This is the part that many people would like to erase out of their bible: “without holiness no one will see the Lord”. People like to just get rid of that. They just like to go with the fact “God loves me and that’s all I need”. But the bible says that without holiness no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to causes trouble and defile many.

How do you miss the grace of God? When you choose not to submit to the Lord and allow Him to work in your life. You miss His grace that enables you to work through things and you miss His grace that forgives you if you hold on to unforgiveness. Because you are resisting God; God resists the proud because they are resisting Him.

And without holiness no one will see the Lord. 2Cor.7:1 says:” Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God”. What does that mean? You see, the blood of Jesus cleanses you from your sin when you release your faith in God. But in the verse he says that you have to separate yourself from immorality unto God. You have to make a choice and make a decision to cut that off from your life and not to do certain things any more.

For instance when people are living together before they are married, they stop that and make a choice to not do that anymore. They get saved and the light goes on and they know that that is something they want to take out of their lives.

He says: “cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit”. What is the spirit part? The spirit part is what is on the inside of you like wrong attitudes, anger issues, unforgiveness, bitterness, resentness, jealousy, pride; those are all inside. That is filthiness of the spirit. You have to get rid of all that stuff. You have to choose your holy direction for your life.

So, you have to choose to make the effort to live in peace with all men and to live holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one misses the grace of God. So, obviously you can miss the grace of God even after you are born again.

Peace in the Greek “Irene” means wholeness, completeness, tranquility in the soul that is unaffected by outward circumstances or pressures. People who live at peace are people that have an inner security that comes from their relationship with Jesus Christ; no matter what is happening around them.
Holiness means consecration to God; keeping something you value as precious to you and to God.

When you make a choice that you are going to live in that Holy direction of your heart with God then you see your relationship with God as something more precious than that lust over there. You see your relationship with God as something valuable. You are thinking of eternity; you are not just thinking of the moment.

When you are at peace; you are free from mental conflict and disturbance. When you have peace, you have harmony. There is peace on the inside and harmony with God and there is harmony with you and people.

Col.3:15 Let the peace of Christ keep you in tune with each other, in step with each other. Msg.
Ampl says: And let the peace (soul harmony which comes) from Christ rule (act as umpire continually) in your hearts; where Christ is the umpire and continually calling the calls in your life. Let the peace of God keep you in tune with one another.

The Glory will fill the earth as the waters cover the sea through people. People! 2Cor.3:18 says “as we behold the image of Him”. How do we behold the image of God? In The Word, when you open up your Bible, it is a mirror to you. When you behold the image of Him; you will be transformed from Glory to Glory. God doesn’t want you to stay at the place where you got saved; He wants you to progress. He wants His Glory to be seen in your life.

He doesn’t want us to be just satisfied. He wants us to yearn for Him and tell Him that we want to be changed so that His Glory can fill your temple that the Glory of God can flow through us towards other people that are around us, that the Glory of God can be revealed through our lives, through us being healed or other miracles.

You see, God wants His Glory to be seen. It can’t be seen when we choose to walk in our own lust or that we choose to go in our direction instead of His divine direction.

We live in a world right now where there is conflict in the nations of the world, governmentally. There is conflict right now in homes and marriages. If you watch the news you will see a lot of conflict on a regular basis. There is an intensifying of the enemy as well as there is an intensifying of God in the day that we are living in.

There is that spirit of conflict and strife that we have to be aware of, so that we do not enter into that direction of that spirit and that we say: “The spirit of God lives in me, it is greater than my problems and I am going to choose to submit to the spirit of God, I am not letting those spirits that are in the world around us influence me”.

Until Jesus returns we need to be willing to be changed from Glory to Glory. When we make a powerful choice to be changed on the inside by God, we will experience that that is the only way to resolve our issues. God loves us so much that He doesn’t want us to stay the same. I want to encourage you to come back tomorrow for part 2 and you will gain even more insight on how to resolve conflicts.

See you tomorrow:
Olga