If you are in the business world, no doubt you’re surrounded by all types of people, and as a disciple of Jesus Christ, your challenge is to deal with all those people like Jesus would. In fact, that’s true whether you’re in the business world or not! The Christian life is literally, Christ in you, the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27).  Paul said, For to me, to live is Christ. . . (Philippians 1:21). And again, I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me (Galatians 2:20).

We are the living word of God that people read every day. And if God has chosen to place you in what we call “secular” jobs, among those who yet have no understanding of God’s love and grace, you are his ambassador. But for true Christians, nothing in our lives is secular. We are all called to be ambassadors for Jesus Christ, whether, as a pastor in a church, or driving a truck, or nursing in a hospital, or selling computers, or raising our children—or whatever! It is a big responsibility we carry as ambassadors for Jesus Christ, but the good news is that we have been given the Holy Spirit to dwell in us. It is through his power that we are enabled to take Jesus to work, as it were.

The way we relate to others is through communication—the words we speak, the way we speak to them, our timing, our attitude, our motivation. All of these contribute to the way others perceive us and whether they see Christ in us.

I want to look at some specific examples of how Jesus communicated with different people in different situations, because we can learn from the Master how we can best communicate with the broken world around us.

Communicating with People Who Disappoint Us

Has someone in your life disappointed you greatly? Life is full of those kinds of disappointments. Guess what—you’ve probably disappointed some people, too. When someone disappoints us, if we don’t know how to respond, we can do further damage to that relationship. Well, what can we learn from Jesus in dealing with people who disappoint us?

Did you ever think about how his closest friends and associates failed Jesus? Judas betrayed him; Peter denied him; all the disciples abandoned him in the Garden of Gethsemane, shortly after they had all declared they would even die for him. But at the first sign of trouble, they were gone.

Those twelve men were disappointing failures as disciples, were they not? They were slow to learn. They had their priorities all confused. They displayed very selfish motives for following Jesus and being his disciple. Over and over Jesus indicated his frustration with their lack of faith and trust in him.

Yet, he never threw them off the team. He allowed them to fail; he permitted them to make mistakes; he suffered through their ignorance and arrogance, until finally they became the men he intended them to be—with the exception of Judas.

So, here’s a principle we learn from Jesus when people have failed us or disappointed us or failed to live up to what we expected from them:

Give people time to fail and learn.

This is a people skill we all need to learn from Jesus and learn well. People must have time to learn and grow. Failure is one of the best teaching methods ever invented. Time is also a good teacher. So, in dealing with people, remember that disappointments come with the territory.

Been disappointed in your child lately? Remember what you were like at his or her age. That always does it for me, because I can clearly remember the dumb things I did in my early years, and my daughter is way ahead of where I was. Give your child time to grow. Teach and coach and role model for your children, but remember, they’re going to disappoint you as they grow and learn.

Got an employee who disappoints you sometimes? Maybe that person hasn’t yet polished their verbal skills and they say the wrong words at times. Or maybe their work habits are lacking a bit. Be patient with them. If that person is teachable,