Verse of the Day - Romans 15:7

Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God. ~ Romans 15:7 (NIV)

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I was in the grocery store yesterday and, as I was perusing through the produce section, I looked up from the Fuji apples at the people around me. And suddenly, the thought came to me, You love all these people, Lord. That lady over there...and the man over there. They were everywhere, of every different sort you could imagine. And I took my unholy spiritual lenses off my eyes and looked at them for who they really are: people created by God who loves them. God loves all of them, regardless of what they look like, how they act, where they come from, or where they're going.

We can sometimes think we've pretty much arrived in this world. We have our act together for the most part...keeping up appearances...and we can snub our noses at those that don't seem to "fit the bill" in life. If people don't fit whatever our version of "regular" and "normal" is, we raise our eyebrows and give an internal thumbs down. The 'suits' look down on the 'skaters' and the 'bikers' look down on the 'suits'....and on and on the judgmentalism goes.

Our example is Jesus, who looked at us...sinful, selfish, rebellious people...and accepted us. You could say that He was a 'suit' who chose to be best friends with a 'skater'. We are the ones who don't fit the bill. Not holy, not blameless, not worthy. And somehow, we forget who we are. We take the righteousness of Christ when we become believers, and then over time, we can sort-of assume that as our own righteousness and look down our noses at others, as if we can take any credit at all for where we stand in Jesus Christ.

Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God...

I pray God will continue to open my eyes to see all people the way He sees them, and give me His grace to accept and love them they way He loves them, so that He will get the praise He deserves. I hope that is your prayer, too.

Love,
Joelene