Over my six years of being a pastor there have been a few things that I have learned. One of the most important things that I have learned is that the Gospel is a much better motivator than the law is. It is much easier to catch flies with honey.

What I mean by this is that, if you want to conform someone to the will of God and have it be for the right purposes, you have to persuade them with the love of Christ that flows through your heart by the power of the Holy Spirit.

This can be applied to just about any and every situation in life. If you want your spouse to be kind to you, to respect you, and to show love to you, treat her with kindness, love, and the peace of the Lord. If you treat her with contempt, with scorn, or as someone to just be there for your every whim, you won’t get very far.

It can be applied to your kids as well. I learned this with my daughter Cara. If I start to yell at her when she isn’t doing what I want her to do, she immediately shuts down and goes into crying mode, or she is rebellious to the point of sitting down on the ground and pouting. At the same time, if I treat her with respect, if I tell her why it would be good for her to do what she is told, and if I show her the love of Christ as I am telling her, she will gladly do it most of the time and we will both be pleased.

This also works very well in talking with others about Christ in so many various forms. You can either go up to someone and accuse them of their sin by calling them a sinner, or you can show them that you are sinner too, that both of you need a Savior, and that God sent his Son Jesus to save both of you by his death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead.

This also works well in getting people who have strayed from worship and fellowship to come back to church. It doesn’t work to make them feel guilty and ashamed of not being there, that just drives them further away. It also doesn’t work to accuse them of their shortcomings over and over again. What does work is to share Christ with them, over and over again, letting them know how much you care for them, how much you want to have them back with you, and spending time with them, kind of like Christ did with “sinners” like the Samaritan woman, the tax collectors, and others.

Truth be told, I have had to learn most of these lessons the hard way. I have tried to guilt people into doing things. I have tried to yell my kids into submission. And I have tried to use the law to motivate people into doing what I want them to do. It just doesn’t work.

Not that I have achieved the ideal yet. I still get a little too forceful with my kids from time to time. I still bring out the guilt card with members of my church a little too often. And I still try to use the law to bring about results. Please forgive me God.

My point is that if we are to grow our churches, if we are to bring about love and peace in our families, if we want to heal broken relationships and make new ones, we need to do it with the fruits of the Spirit namely: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

At the same time, this isn’t something that we can necessarily “work” on. Instead these things come as a direct result of our growing understanding of God as he has made himself known to us through his word and sacraments. In other words, to change our habits, to change our attitudes, and to change our perspective we must rely on the one who changes us, namely the Holy Spirit.

This is what worship is for. In worship we confess our sinfulness and receive the forgiveness that our Lord Jesus won for us on the cross. You receive His Word through your ears as the pastor preaches the sermon, as you hear people read from God’s Word, and as you sing hymns that contain his word at every point.

This is what Bible study is for. In Bible study we learn all about God and who he is and how he deals with us, we also learn from him how we are to treat one another and grow with each other as brothers and sisters in Christ.

This is what daily devotions are for. In daily devotions are minds are turned from the every day worries of the world to the serenity and peace that can only be found in Christ. In prayer we have a conversation with our Lord God, and who better is there to talk to than him?

If we spend time daily in these things, and rightly learn from God’s Word we will definitely see a change in all of our relationships. We will also see a change in ourselves.

One thing I do wish though is that I would have learned these lessons a long time ago, that way I wouldn’t have messed up so many relationships and spent so much time trying to fix what I had messed up.

I encourage you all to learn from my mistakes. Live a life of love, not sappy all accepting love, but true Christian love that flows from a pure heart that has been cleansed by the blood of the lamb. God go with you as you grow in, by, and through him!