It’s time to end the standoff 

God created us to enjoy unbroken fellowship with Him and each other. (And he designed marriage as the epitome of human relationships.) That’s why Satan’s first ploy was to separate us from God—and from each other. Using things like pride, stubbornness, confusion, resentment, and selfishness, he drives wedges and polarizes relationships. What starts out as a misunderstanding often ends in angry standoffs or toxic silences that last for hours, days, and sometimes years. Furthermore, we delude ourselves by thinking it’s nobody else’s business. The fallout can’t be contained. It affects every relationship in our lives—all because we’re determined to prove we’re right and the other person is wrong. And it’s not just a psychological problem; it’s a sin problem in need of a divine solution! Here is how God handles polarized relationships. Paul wrote, “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them.” Sin destroyed our relationship with God. Yet He took the initiative by giving Jesus “as a ransom [price paid] for many” (Mark 10:45 NIV), in order to reconcile us to Himself. Reconciling means bringing back together what belongs together! Notice this: God doesn’t count “people’s sins against them.” Neither does He trivialize or ignore our sin debt. He cancelled it at the cross and stopped holding it against us. And it didn’t end there. He “made us agents of…reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:19 PHPS) by calling us “to settle our relationships with each other” (v. 19 MSG). Sometimes that means eating humble pie, becoming the reconciler, taking the initiative, and ending the standoff. Are you ready to do that today?