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Your Savior didn’t allow the dictates of His society to keep Him from projecting an image that He was approachable and available to others. Has your social circle or society dictated how you should treat others, especially those who could be characterized as outsiders? Oftentimes, during the holidays the unchurched or hurting are open to the comfort and answers that God’s love could provide. Do you welcome or ignore those who aren’t already in your church or community?
We’ve all been abundantly blessed by God in so many ways. So make it a goal to not look down on those who haven’t been so blessed with position, money, clothes, education, or health. Check your heart. Are you approachable to those who might need the gifts God has given you?
Prejudice and discrimination are not new concepts. In fact, both were common during the time of Jesus. The Jews were especially prone to believe that because they were God’s chosen people, they were better than everyone else. Therefore they had nothing to do with the rest of humanity, the Gentiles. Women were also held in low regard at this time. But despite this social-environment one Gentile (non-Jewish) woman perceived that Jesus was approachable, fell at His feet, and asked Him to cast a demon out of her daughter (Mark 7:24-30).
Just because someone seems “different” to you doesn’t justify an avoidance mentality. Jesus put Himself in a place where a foreigner and a woman—an outcast on two counts by social norms of the time—could approach Him. God never intended for the Jews to isolate themselves from the rest of the world. And God’s intentions haven’t changed for you and me today. We are to go into the world and rub shoulders with different ethnic and social groups. We are not to avoid them but emulate Jesus, accept their differences, and be ready when they approach us in their hour of need.
I pray that as the Christmas holiday approaches believers exhibit the love and forgiveness that Christ blessed arrival proclaimed to all!
A Prayer to Pray: Jesus, help me to always see others with Your eyes. Remind me that I am to show Your love to people even when they are different than me.
For more about God’s wonderful character read, A Woman who Reflects the Heart of Jesus.
Read Look Up, Not Down! on Elizabeth & Jim George.
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Jim and Elizabeth George are bestselling authors and national speakers dedicated to helping people live a life after God’s own heart. Together, they have written over 150 books with more than 14 million copies sold around the world. For over 35 years, the teachings and steadfast example of Elizabeth and Jim have helped countless men and women:
Jim and Elizabeth George are bestselling authors and national speakers dedicated to helping people live a life after God’s own heart. Together, they have written over 150 books with more than 14 million copies sold around the world. For over 35 years, the teachings and steadfast example of Elizabeth and Jim have helped countless men and women:
When something difficult happens in your life, are you ever tempted to ask, “What good could come out of this?” The event looks like a disaster. It feels like a disaster. Therefore, we quickly conclude, it is a disaster! But God did not forget His people who were suffering in Babylon. And, my friend, He won’t forget you!
Too many times in the past I’ve told others “I’m fine” in order to hide my pain and sorrows from them. The truth is, my thoughts pulled me down so far that, in private, tears regularly streamed down my face. Are you constantly thinking negative thoughts? Being a woman after God’s own heart is all about “minding your mind.”
As a young mother, I endeavored to “train a child in the way he should go,” so that “when he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6). A decade later, however, I wasn’t reaping the results I had expected. Angrily, I said to God, “But this isn’t the way it was supposed to be! This isn’t the way it went for this family here or that family over there. And this isn’t the way it was supposed to be for my family!”