Change a Bad Wrong Attitude

My sentiment and attitude for most of my life--even after becoming a Christian--which all my 4 children unfortunately experienced was "Go ahead, make my day." What my children felt about my attitude was "as if I didn't give an f... about what people felt or thought." Sadly, I didn't mind it and sometimes still do not, due to my own stubborn insistence on my own rightness.

But over the past decade or so, I am intentionally trying to change that, based on:

• "If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone" (Rom 12:18), and
• 
  "For we are taking pains to do what is right, not only in the eyes of the Lord but also in the eyes of man" (2 Cor 8:21).

Yet a favorite verse of mine is

• "I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me" (1 Cor 4:3-4).

My life should not be affected by what others think of me, since I should be more concerned about what God thinks of me. So, yes, I shouldn't care how others judge me. But I do judge myself, for I'm often acutely aware of my sins, which never entirely goes away. So my conscience does bother me and I can only avail myself to God's judgment and God's mercy.

Even as I fail often, I desire to live with a heart of "fear and trembling" before God (Phil 2:12), and with "humility and tears" (Ac 20:19), and by my faith and conviction of one "who loved me and gave himself to me" (Gal 2:20).

Walk the Gospel Line (Galatians 2:1-14)

"I saw that they were not walking (acting) in line with (not following, not straightforward about, not obeying, deviating from) the truth of the gospel..." (Gal 2:14, various translations). "We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you" (Gal 2:5).

What is the gospel? What is "the truth of the gospel"? What does it mean to "walk in line with the truth of the gospel"? How do we "walk in line with the truth of the gospel" today?