daySEVENTEEN :: Father and Favoritism

My dear friends, don't let public opinion influence how you live out our glorious, Christ-originated faith.  If a man enters your church wearing an expensive suit, and a street person wearing rags comes in right after him,  and you say to the man in the suit, "Sit here, sir; this is the best seat in the house!" and either ignore the street person or say, "Better sit here in the back row,"  haven't you segregated God's children and proved that you are judges who can't be trusted? 

Listen, dear friends. Isn't it clear by now that God operates quite differently? He chose the world's down-and-out as the kingdom's first citizens, with full rights and privileges. This kingdom is promised to anyone who loves God.

James 2:1-5

This morning, as I thought about our launch team, I thought about this passage in James.  James was the leader of the Jerusalem church and he is writing to all of the believers in Jesus who had been spread out from Jerusalem during the persecution.  The message is clear for James: favoritism has no place in the kingdom that Jesus has established.  For us, this message rings true in our culture and in our world.  It's easy to get sucked into the us versus them mentality in our culture and believe that because we go to church that we are in some way better than others.  We are not.  Every person is an image-bearer of the One who created us.  Each of us carry in ourselves the breath of the one who exhaled life into our bones.  Every person who enters the Y on Sunday mornings, every person who walks into your office during the week, every person who drives into a garage in your neighborhood.  No person on this earth escaped the breath of God and was created outside His image.  No one.

Part of being in the position we are in as a new church means that we will be visited by many different people wanting to know where we stand on issues and how we will respond to people in their situation - rich or poor, black or white, married or divorced, gay or straight, clean or hooked.  Our response ought to clearly be the response of Jesus with everyone we encounter.  Our arms of welcome are open to everyone.  Our commitment to God's truth is unwavering.  Part of "loving your neighbor as yourself" includes loving people who are different than us in ridiculous ways sometimes.  Our church may one day be ridiculed for our love for people and our acceptance of people, and that is okay.  We will be in some pretty good company at that point.

prayTODAY ::

Spend some time with Father this morning asking where you need to grow in the areas of acceptance and love for others.  Then confess and repent of wrong attitudes, asking for His strength to be the kind of person he wants you to be.  Every person connected to The Springs plays an important part in others understanding the truth about who we are as a church.  May favoritism be far removed, though criticism may be right around the corner.