Seeing Clearly
February 5/6, 2022
Daniel and Christina Im

Definition of a Toxic Person:
1. Controlling Nature
2. Murderous Spirit
3. Heart that loves to hate

Two Important Points about Toxic People:
· Not every difficult, different, or hurting person in your life is toxic.
· Just because someone is toxic to you doesn’t mean that they are toxic to others.

How to Interact with Toxic People:

1. Walk away
The blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. When the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonders that he did and the children shouting in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant and said to him, “Do you hear what these children are saying?” Jesus replied, “Yes, have you never read: You have prepared praise from the mouths of infants and nursing babies?” Then he left them, went out of the city to Bethany, and spent the night there. (Matthew 21:14-17 CSB)

2. Let them walk away
Then the Pharisees went and plotted how to trap him by what he said. So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians. “Teacher,” they said, “we know that you are truthful and teach truthfully the way of God. You don’t care what anyone thinks nor do you show partiality. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” Perceiving their malicious intent, Jesus said, “Why are you testing me, hypocrites? Show me the coin used for the tax.” They brought him a denarius. “Whose image and inscription is this?” he asked them. “Caesar’s,” they said to him. Then he said to them, “Give, then, to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away. (Matthew 22:15-22 CSB)

3. Entrust them to Jesus
When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they came together. And one of them, an expert in the law, asked a question to test him: “Teacher, which command in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and most important command. The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.” (Matthew 22:34-40 CSB)