Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect. (1 Peter 3:15)
Show proper respect to everyone, love the family of believers, fear God, honor the emperor. (1 Peter 2:17)
Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor. (Romans 13:7)
Respectful people seem to be a dying breed these days. Among younger people, I see an appalling lack of respect for people and property. General courtesies seem to be missing like “please” and “thank you.” Most of Chandler’s friends call me John, which is fine, if I asked them to, but I never did. A “Mr. Fischer” is a welcome surprise. I used to say, “That’s okay, you can call me John; when someone says Mr. Fischer I start looking around for my father,” but I don’t say that anymore. If one of these kids calls me Mr. Fischer, I receive it as a refreshing form of politeness and respect for an adult.
I’m not saying this to try and solve it; I’m only making a cultural observation. Certainly terrorism has shown us a total disregard for human life, and for those who have different values. Civility is missing in the marketplace. It’s gone from the public square. Civility is missing in Congress where Republicans and Democrats show an inappropriate lack of respect for each other and seem to be more and more intolerant of those who think differently. And as another political election heats up, look for the mud to fly.
Into this hostile environment enters the follower of Christ, seeking to respect everyone, and give everyone the right to be who they are and think what they think. I’ll go one step farther, as Os Guinness taught us, we need to champion that right. Christians need to be at the forefront of creating a safe civil environment for freedom of belief and expression. We can make a huge difference in our culture simply by being respectful of all people regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, immigration status, sexual preference, political opinion, and anything else that might make someone different from us.
It helps me to make this an issue of the image of God — God left His mark on every man and woman, regardless. That’s a basic given we can start from. No matter how much I may be tempted to dislike a person, they are still in the image of God. And they are loved by God. And Christ died for them. That’s a lot right there to respect.
Mostly we need to respect each person’s process of coming to faith or not. When Peter says to give a reason for the hope that we have, with gentleness and respect, to anyone who asks us, he is not only saying respect for the individual; he is saying respect for the process. Respect for where they are at on the scale of disbelief to belief. We don’t know anyway what’s going on in someone’s heart. We don’t fault them for what they believe. What they believe has come from their experience, their background, their influencers. They are in process just as we are. They get to have their process and we can’t take that away from them. We wouldn’t want to. Their process could be leading them to Christ and we may be an important step in that.
God is drawing people to Himself. He doesn’t need our help to do that; He needs our help to be human vessels in whom He can manifest the presence of Christ in the world. That’s it. And that’s a pretty big deal.
John Fischer The Catch 
wanted to add an Amen to this: “God is drawing people to Himself. He doesn’t need our help to do that; He needs our help to be human vessels in whom He can manifest the presence of Christ in the world. That’s it. And that’s a pretty big deal.”
Yes!!!! So True and Well Said
I believe we are all equal and no one should be esteemed over another, after all we all put our pants on in the same manner. 1 leg at a time, however, most times respect is earned not given. Wishing you and your family well 🙂
Loving people has nothing to do with respect. Even if you don’t respect someone you are commanded to love everyone.
I’m so glad you brought this topic up. I was just talking with my friend last week about this same thing. I was in a Starbucks in then most affluent neighborhood in Dallas. When I was getting my cream I noticed a Muslim family walking up. They chose to sit outside. While the men were standing getting ready to go get the drinks the women were making themselves comfortable outside. I couldn’t help but think of all the hate in my heart that had been fed to me for years through the media. I decided to make a change in my untrue feelings by acting differently. I look at them all and said hello and that I hoped that they have a nice day. The best way we can change a habit by doing something different. It felt so good inside. We are who we are because of where we have been born but we are all Gods children loved by Him no matter Religion, Sexual Identity, or Race. The End
We have all encountered people who seem downright unlovable. It could be the cranky person who never has anything good to say. It could be a nasty salesclerk or a driver who cuts you off in traffic. Our gut instinct is to dislike these people; however, we know that God wants us to behave differently.
We are commanded to “love your neighbor as yourself,” and by “your neighbor,” God means everyone, and by “love,” God doesn’t mean tolerate.
But how are we to love those who are hard to love?
The antidote to the sin of baseless hatred is “baseless love.”
Baseless hatred means that a person hates another person for no reason — just because. And that’s exactly how we need to implement baseless love — just because! There is no reason. It may even seem unreasonable to love that person. But we love them just because.
We need to stop looking so closely at other people and judging them. We need to remember that there is more to any individual’s story than we may know. We need to quit analyzing the behavior of others and just love. When we love others despite their flaws, we will feel God’s love for us in spite of our own.
Excerpted from “Holy Land Moments – Loving the Unlovable” – http://www.holylandmoments.org/devotionals/loving-the-unlovable