“Agree with your adversary quickly, while you are on the way with him, lest your adversary deliver you to the judge, the judge hand you over to the officer, and you be thrown into prison.”Matthew 5:25

This is some great advice for relationships. Jesus challenges us all to see relationships as things worthy of sacrifice–even for people who may hate us and hurt us.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” Matthew 5:43-45

Jesus forces us to recognize that people should be treated well, not because of what they deserve but because of who we are. If we claim to be or want to be children of God, then we must act like children of God. God does good to the just and the unjust. So should we!

This is the kindness and love of God–demonstrated best by Jesus dying on the cross!

Being agreeable is one of the important parts of kindness.

I spoke previously about how listening can show important kindness during a conflict. (And kindness is an important part of a Christian’s walk.) Being agreeable is very close to as important as listening.

It carries within it the desire for reconciliation and the desire for peace because of the value of the relationship. So when we are in conflict, one of the best things to do is to take on an attitude of kindness and learning to be agreeable.

There is nothing wrong with the idea that we try to please others or make ourselves easier to like. This should never be done as a compromise of the truth, but when there is conflict, being agreeable can have great benefit to you.

The best way we can help resolve a conflict is to find ways we agree.

This is not agreeing for the sake of agreement. We don’t find peace through deception. We should never agree with someone just so we can get them off our back with no intention of actually agreeing. I’ve done that before and it is a sign of weakness and cowardice. No, but we CAN be agreeable. That simply means that in any given conflict, the more we can find that we agree with each other, the better off both parties will be. And here are a few reasons why this is true.

* We will being to see that we have much more in common than we do in contrast.* This will help us focus on the REAL issue and not all the ways that the issue can present itself. It will help us clearly define the problem we are facing.* The more we are like others, the more likely it is that they will like us. The less in common we have, the more fear may come in and harm the relationship. It’s a simple fact of psychology–the more people are like us the more we trust them. We all believe we are good and trustworthy. And if we see others like us then we will assume they are equally trustworthy. This is actually the foundation many con-men use to trick people. We can use it for good. FIND WAYS you can agree with people.

So Jesus said, “agree with them quickly”. That is, FIND agreement while you can.

This will not solve all of our problems, but it will certainly help!