How to enjoy the people in your life

Philippians is a personal and positive book that tells us most about Paul and teaches us how to be joyful in spite of circumstances or problems that we all face.

In Philippians 1:3-11 Paul begins immediately talking about people. If relationships are bad or strained, life is difficult at best. These problems seem to destroy the joy in your life.

The four keys to enjoying people in your life are:

1. Be grateful for the good in people.  V. 3. "I thank my God every time I remember you."  Paul said I like to remember the good things about people, focus on the good times we've had, remember the positive experiences.  What do you remember about people?  The good experiences or the bad experiences?  Maybe you have, in your past, been hurt by a parent or a partner and you're still holding on to that hurt.  As a result you can't enjoy them today.  You're still focusing on the bad and the negative.  Be grateful for the good in people.  Pleasant memories are a choice.  I can choose what I'm going to remember about the past. 

Remember the best. Forget the rest.

2. The quickest way to change a relationship from bad to good is to start thanking God in prayer for people.  This will do two things:  change your attitude and change them. Positive praying is much more powerful than positive thinking. People may resist our advice and spurn our appeals and reject our suggestions and not listen to our help, but they are powerless against our prayers.

Four things Paul prays for other people.  You can pray these for people in your life and you can know that they'll be answered because they are God's will.  They are in the Bible.

1.  Pray that they will grow in love.

2.  Pray that they make wise choices.  

3.  Pray that they will do the right thing.  

4.  Pray that they will live for God's glory.

3. Be patient with their progress. Paul looked at people's future and not just at their past.  He looked at their potential and was patient with their progress.   V. 6:  Being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."  Paul says what God starts, God finishes.  What God started in your life at salvation, He will bring it eventually to completion.

4.  Love people from the heart.  I've discovered that if people are not in my heart, they're on my nerves.  If you don't have your kids in your heart, they get on your nerves.  If you don't have your husband in your heart, he gets on your nerves.

"Heart Love" begins with understanding but how do we get that understanding?  By asking questions and then listening to the answers.

How do you love those people that even when you do understand them, they are unlovable?  V. 8:  "God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus." Paul would say, "I've got a gut feeling of love for you."  It is intensive love that makes me love even the unlovely.  That is not a natural kind of love.  It is a supernatural kind of love and that's why Paul said it's not from himself, but it's the affection of Christ Jesus.  Human love wears out and dries up and dies on the vine.  This happens to everybody.  The only kind of love that lasts and lasts in spite of heartache and difficulty in tough circumstances is God's love -- the affection of Jesus Christ.  That's the only kind of love that lasts.

Life is too short not to enjoy the people in your life.  If you don't learn to enjoy the people that God has placed around you in your life, you will be miserable.  As Paul begins this great book about joy (and he's going to deal with all the common kill-joys we experience in life) he starts off talking about people. People will rob your joy unless you learn how to respond to them the way Jesus did.

Have a wonderful new week.