How to see Christ in difficult people (NOT easy, but possible!)
VideoTranscript
This is the video’s transcript, lightly formatted. Tap a time to jump to that moment.
The dust of the Damascus robe clung to his robes, a gritty testament to the fire in his soul. Saul of Tarsus was a man on a mission. His heart a furnace of righteous fury. His mind a finely honed instrument of the law. He was utterly convinced he was defending the one true light by extinguishing these dangerous blasphemous sparks of a new sect. This fledgling faith that dared to speak of a crucified and risen Messiah. He carried letters of authority, but his true authority came from a conviction so deep it was bone marrow certain.
The followers of the way were a cancer on the faith of his fathers. And he was the surgeon sent to cut them out. As he neared the city, the sun high and hot in the Syrian sky. He wasn't just a traveler. He was a weapon of God, aimed and ready. And then in an instant that shattered reality, a light from heaven, brighter than the noon sun, flashed around him, throwing him to the ground, blinding him, stripping him of everything but the ringing in his ears and the taste of dust in his mouth. He heard a voice, a voice that was not thunder, but was more powerful than any storm.
A voice that knew his name. "Saul, Saul," it said, the words piercing through his confusion and terror. Why do you persecute me? What an astonishing worldaltering question. In that moment of divine confrontation, Jesus, the risen and glorified Lord, didn't ask, Saul, why do you persecute my followers? He didn't say, "Why do you harm my church?" or "Why do you disagree with my teachings?"
No, he asked a question that was so personal, so intimate, so profoundly identifying that it must have ripped through every category in Saul's meticulously ordered mind. Why do you persecute me? In that blinding flash of light, Jesus Christ revealed a truth so fundamental it would become the cornerstone of this persecutor's entire future life and ministry. to touch one of his followers, even the least, even the most flawed was to touch him. He was so completely, mystically, wonderfully united with his people that their suffering was his suffering. Their persecution was his persecution. And in that one question, he gives us the key, the secret lens through which all our human relationships are meant to be transformed.
He gives us the power to see him not just in the lovely and the agreeable, but in the difficult, the challenging, and even in the people we might consider our enemies. This is a truth that if we really let it sink in, changes everything. It moves from a nice religious idea to the very bedrock of how we navigate our daily lives. The Apostle Paul, the man who was once Saul, would later write to a messy, squabbbling, and deeply flawed church in Corenth and ask them a question that was just as stunning. Don't you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you whom you have received from God? 1 Corinthians 6:19.
He wasn't just talking to the spiritual superstars or the church leaders. He was talking to everyone. to the person who gossiped, to the one who struggled with pride, to the new believer who was still figuring things out. He was saying that every single person who's put their faith in Christ has become a sacred space, a holy of holies, a walking, talking sanctuary where the living God has chosen to make his home. This isn't just beautiful poetry. It's the most profound reality of our new identity. And if it's true for you, it's also true for that Christian brother or sister who drives you absolutely nuts.
That person you find so difficult. The one whose opinions great on you, whose personality clashes with yours, whose immaturity frustrates you to no end. They're a temple, a living, breathing dwelling place of the most high God. When we begin to see people through this lens, it's like putting on a new set of glasses. The world shifts. our reactions, our impatience, our critical spirit, they all begin to look out of place, like wearing muddy boots into a pristine sanctuary. It doesn't mean the person suddenly stops being difficult.
It doesn't mean their behavior is excused or that boundaries aren't sometimes necessary, but it fundamentally changes our inner posture toward them. We move from a place of reaction to a place of reverence. We're no longer just dealing with an annoying personality. We're encountering sacred ground. We're standing before a temple where Christ himself dwells. I wanted to take a second to tell you about my book, which expands on what I'm talking about today. The broken mirror of rediscovering our true nature in Christ will transform how you see yourself forever.
Stop living as a struggling sinner trying to be good enough and discover you're already a beloved child of God with his divine nature flowing through you. This book will free you from shame, give you unshakable identity, and show you how to access God's peace, wisdom, and strength from within. The book shows how this story unfolds from Genesis to Revelation, and teaches you to live from rest, see others as fellow image bearers, and step into your true calling as a radiant reflector of divine light. Your daily struggles will become opportunities for God's nature to shine through you. Get ready to live the abundant life Jesus promised. The link to the book is in the video description. Hard copy, Kindle, and audiobook versions are all available.
May God bless your journey along his path for you. Think about that family member who knows exactly how to push your buttons. Maybe it's a parent who still treats you like a child, whose words are laced with criticism you've heard a thousand times. Or maybe it's a sibling who you share a long and complicated history with where every conversation seems to drift back into old patterns of rivalry and misunderstanding. Or maybe it's your own child, a teenager whose choices are breaking your heart, who seems determined to walk a path of self-destruction. Our natural human reaction is to defend, to argue, to control, to withdraw. We react to the behavior, to the words, to the pain they cause us.
But what happens if in the middle of that tense conversation, we take a deep spiritual breath and remember this person is a temple. Christ is in them, even if their actions are obscuring his reflection right now. Suddenly, the goal of the conversation shifts. It's not about winning the argument or proving our point anymore. It becomes about honoring the sacred space that is that person. It means we might listen more than we speak. It means we might ask a question born of genuine curiosity rather than accusation.
It means we might choose a soft answer not because we're weak, but because we refuse to desecrate a holy place with our own anger. We begin to speak not just to their flawed human behavior, but to their divine potential, the true identity that lies dormant within them. We might find ourselves praying silently, Lord, show me how to love you in this person. Help me see them as you see them. This doesn't guarantee they're going to change overnight, but it will absolutely fundamentally change us. It replaces our frustration with a holy patience, our anger with a compassionate sorrow. We start to love them not with our own depleted conditional human love, but with Christ's own unconditional love that flows from his presence within us.
We begin to reflect the truth of what Paul wrote. Love is patient and is kind. Love doesn't envy. Love doesn't brag, is not proud, doesn't behave itself inappropriately, doesn't seek its own way, is not provoked, takes no account of evil. in 1 Corinthians 13:4 and 5. We can only do that when we see the object of our love not as a problem to be solved, but as a temple to be revered. Now, let's bring this into the workplace.
We all know difficult people at work. There's the boss who's demanding and never satisfied. There's a co-worker who seems to thrive on gossip and negativity. There's a team member who doesn't pull their own weight, leaving you to pick up the slack. It's so easy to fall into patterns of resentment, complaint, and bitterness. It comes natural to us. We label them lazy, incompetent, toxic.
And in doing that, we reduce them to their function, to their behavior, to their effect on us. But the call to see Christ in others doesn't stop when we clock in. That difficult boss, a temple of the Holy Spirit, wrestling with pressures and insecurities we can't see. That gossiping co-orker, a sacred space, perhaps crying out from a place of deep loneliness or insignificance. That slacking team member, a mirror designed for glory, currently clouded by fear or apathy or personal struggles we don't know anything about. When we see them that way, our work itself becomes a form of worship. Our task isn't anymore just to complete a project or earn a paycheck.
Is to reflect the character of Christ in a challenging environment. It means we choose to speak words of encouragement instead of joining the complaint session at the water cooler. It means we do our work with excellence, not to impress a difficult boss, but heartily as for the Lord and not for men. Colossians 3:23. Knowing that our ultimate audience is the one who dwells both in us and in them, it means we might gently refuse to engage in gossip. Not with a self-righteous error, but with a quiet grace that subtly changes the atmosphere. This is incredibly hard.
I'm not going to lie about that. I'm not making this up. I'm not telling you it's easy. I'm not telling you it's natural. It's the opposite of natural, but it is the supernatural result of seeing with spiritual eyes. We begin to understand that our primary mission in any workplace isn't just about professional success. It's about being a living, breathing sanctuary of God's peace, patience, and grace in a world that is starved for it.
We become ambassadors of a different kingdom right there in our cubicles and conference rooms. Now, let's take it a step further to what might be the most difficult application of all in this current world. seeing Christ in our opponents and our enemies. Our society is so polarized, so divided. We build walls. We draw lines. We retreat into our tribes.
We label those on the other side of the political, social, and even theological aisle with dismissive and dehumanizing terms. They are the other. They are the enemy. Their ideas aren't just wrong. They're dangerous. And therefore, they themselves are to be opposed, silenced, and defeated. But Jesus' command cuts through all our tribal instincts.
Love your enemies. Bless those who curse you. Do good to those who hate you. And pray for those who mistreat you and persecute you that you may be children of your father who is in heaven. Matthew 5:44 and 45.
How is this even possible? It's only possible when we look past the ideologies we despise and see the image bearer. the potential temple that stands before us. Even if a person doesn't know Christ, they're still created in the IMO day, the image of God. They are a mirror, however tragically marred, that was designed to reflect divine light. They're a potential sanctuary. When we engage with someone we disagree with, remembering this truth prevents us from demonizing them.
We can passionately disagree with their ideas while still honoring their inherent god-given dignity as a person. We can still fight for what we believe is true and just without losing our own soul to hatred and contempt. We can pray for them, not that they be destroyed, but that their eyes would be open to the same light that has opened ours. This is the radical worldchanging love of the kingdom. It refuses to play by the world's rules of division and dehumanization. It insists on seeing every single person without exception as being of immense value and potential in the eyes of God.
This perspective is what empowered the early church to love their persecutors. It's what gave men and women the strength to pray for the very people who were leading them to their deaths. They saw beyond the temporary hatred to the eternal soul that God loved and for whom Christ died. They saw potential temples and they responded with a love that could only have come from the God who dwelt within their own. Finally, this lens of seeing Christ and others compels us to move toward the broken, the messy, and the marginalized just as Jesus always did. Societyy's very good at labeling and dismissing people. the addict, the homeless person, the ex-con, the mentally ill.
We see the label. We see the brokenness, and we often keep our distance. But Jesus consistently saw past the broken exterior to the precious heart within. He saw Zakayas, the corrupt tax collector, not as a traitor, but as a son of Abraham. In Luke 19:9, he saw the woman caught in adultery, not as a sinner to be condemned, but as a person in need of grace and a new beginning. In John 8:11, and in one of his most haunting teachings, Jesus makes this identification explicit. He speaks of the final judgment where he'll separate the nations as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
The criteria, for I was hungry and you gave me food to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you took me in. I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you visited me. I was in prison and you came to me. Matthew 25:35 and 36.
The righteous are confused. Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or in prison? And his reply is the echo of that question he asked Saul on the Damascus road. Most certainly I tell you, because you did it to one of the least of these, my brothers, you did it to me. To see Christ in the difficult person is to see him in the least of these. It's to look at the person sleeping on the park bench and see a sacred temple, albeit one that is weathered and in desperate need of repair. It's to look at the addict struggling in the grip of a merciless disease, and see a beloved child of God for whom Christ is longing to bring freedom.
It's to see the prisoner behind bars and recognize a soul with an eternal destiny. When we see this way, our charity is transformed into fellowship, our pity into profound compassion. We're no longer just helping the unfortunate. We are ministering to Christ himself. We're washing his feet, clothing his body, visiting him in his confinement.
This ain't easy. Let me say that again. This is not easy. It's a lifelong practice of unlearning the world's way of seeing and learning to see with the eyes of God. It requires a constant conscious dependence on the Holy Spirit to give us his perspective. There will be days when we fail, when our old reactive nature takes over, but grace is always there to pick us up, to cleanse the lens of our own hearts, and to help us try again. It starts with the simple quiet prayer whispered in the face of a difficult encounter.
Lord, help me to see you here. This is the path to becoming people who truly love like Jesus loved. It's the secret to a life of profound peace even in the midst of conflict. It's the way we become conduits of his healing grace in a broken world. It begins by taking seriously the most radical, lifealtering truth of faith that the infinite, glorious, loving God of the universe has chosen to make his home in the fragile, beautiful, and often very difficult temples of human hearts. When we see that in ourselves, we can finally begin to see it in everyone else. And when that happens, everything, absolutely everything, changes.
Let this be our prayer. Aba, Father, forgive us for the times we've looked at others and seen only their flaws, their failures, their brokenness. Forgive us for forgetting that every person is made in your image and every one of your children is a holy temple, a dwelling place for your very spirit. Today, Lord, we ask for new eyes. Give us the grace to see past the difficult exteriors to the sacred space within. Help us to see our family members, our colleagues, our opponents, and the marginalized not as problems to be fixed or obstacles to be overcome, but as precious image bearsers in whom Christ dwells. Let this vision transform our hearts, soften our words, and guide our actions.
May we learn to love others as you love them. That in doing so we might truly be your children reflecting the beautiful unifying and healing light of your son. In whose name we pray. Amen.
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