You know the feeling. We’ve all experienced it countless times. You’re in a conversation with someone and it has begun to elevate. Emotions are now invested and you can feel the tension rising. Your heart begins to pound. Your face turns a little flush. Your voice raises and maybe even cracks a bit. And you’re there, right in the middle of a personal conflict.

Question: What do you do? How do you proceed?

Does it depend on who the person is? Whether it is a friend or a family member or just some guy you bumped into at the store?

Does it depend on the issue? If it’s something personal or religious or political?

Or does it depend on how convinced you are about your argument? What if this particular conflict hits really close to home? What if it directly touches your life? And what if you KNOW that you’re right? What then? Does this change the game for you? Are you all in, no questions asked? Do you attack until you have conquered?

As Jesus followers, these interactions really matter. It is these moments that will come to define us – possibly more than anything else. It is from these conflicts that we will be remembered. These are the conversations that will be retold about us. This is how our Jesus will be judged by the world.

You see, it is possible to be 100% right and yet 100% wrong at the same time. If we are right with the truth that we carry but we speak it with anger and rage and even hate, we could not be more wrong. We have lost our way as badly as if we had no truth to share.

Ours is a message of love. It is what we are to be known by. It is what we have been rescued by and it is what we have to offer.

What if we spent every moment of every day trying to discover how we could best love the person in front of us? What if we were more concerned with that than winning an argument or defending our rights or making a point?

What if love was our point? What if the person was more important to us than the issue? How would they leave their experience with you? What would they think about you? About Jesus?

When you’re after love, you can always say, “You know I’m right!”