Thursday, November 5, 2009

WHO IS THE LEAST OF THESE MY BRETHREN?

"As you have done it to these the least of these MY brethren, you have done unto me."
Do you realize the importance and implication of this statement of Jesus? All of us, all of humanity, are the brethren of Jesus. There are no throw backs. Now let's take stock.

Look at the down and out. The drug addicts. The alcoholics, the mentally ill, the chronic abusers of any and everything. The street people , the homeless, the rejected by society and all too often that means the ones who fought valiantly in Viet Nam, and other wars and conflicts.

What about fatherless mothers, innocent children of conceptions which should never have taken place? Where is Jesus in all of these peoples lives?

Well the GOOD NEWS IS, that ALL of these individuals were chosen and adopted into the very life of God before the foundation of the world. ( Eph. 1:3-14.) They are not cast offs as our world would look at them ..they are the children of God. And He loves all of them just as He loves you.

Now frankly some of them stink. Some of them are not fun to be around. Some of them I would not want to chill with. But.................They are God's children and HE loves them.

John 3:16-17, is ALL inclusive as are so many other verses. I John 2:2. And others.

So what do we all self righteous persons make of all of this. Well , for one, we need to drop our self-righteousness, accept all humans as brothers in the Lord, the children of God, never make comparisons, never denigrate or disparage those in all of these less fortunate situations as we and love everyone. Not discriminating.

We are ALL brothers and sisters in The Lord. No room for comparisons. No room for disrespect. Only room for acceptance and love. Can you deal with it? Then do.

1 comment:

Thom Friedrich said...

Thank you, Paul, for this piece. You said here what needs to be said from every roof top of every city. "There is none righteous, no not one." So why do we look at other as unworthy when in fact we are ALL unworthy. Thanks be to God for the blood of Jesus that washes away the hypocrisy of the "classes" of humanity and places us on equal footing before our Lord and Savior! I struggled with finding the right message for our worship service tomorrow and I just want to give you a big "Thank you" for providing me the springboard that I needed. May God richly bless you in the work you do for his Kingdom.

-Thom