Words With No Action

The world is full of a kinds of people. Our nation is a great example of how so many different types of people can live in one place and still get along. However with all this variety of people there is no community outside of those “like you”. This begins in elementary school, continues into high school and then is forever present in our lives. It’s always there!

We find this also to be true within the church. This is of course not true for all churches but the truth is that a sad majority may have different social classes present but they rarely mix. The most devastating part of this is that the truth of the gospel is hindered. When the church lives like the world, separating social class’, the gospel is unable to fully shine because the sin of arrogance is allowed to grow.

I know the argument, I in my worst moments have used it. However the Bible, James 2 specifically, speaks out strongly against it. We can not ignore a group of people for any reason.

However you may not yet be convinced, or should I say convicted. To be truthful it took me awhile to understand the need to jump in against the social norms. Even after jumping in there were and are a great many times where I want to swim as fast as I can back to the shore of comfort.

I don’t like being in awkward situations. I don’t like hearing the most mundane part of people’s lives. However for the broken and needy of this world sometimes all they need is someone  to sit and talk with them. It’s an awkward and messy place to be.

But then I’m reminded that so is the Gospel.

I’m not even close to being good at this. I still find myself running to the other side of the road when I see someone up ahead in need of help or a great chunk of my time. However I think there are fields rip for the harvest that the church is ignoring because there a people groups deemed to hard to reach or to time consuming.

Let’s be honest. If your not easy to love people won’t love you. If you are needy or have a troubled past you will be hard pressed to have anyone even speak with you that claims the name of Jesus.

We, the church, dont like to hear this but it’s true. We have done a VERY poor job of loving people like Jesus lives them. Just speak with a few of these people. They will tell you. They don’t feel loved, cared for or even wanted.  I know this sounds negative.  I know there are MANY organizations that help feed and care for the poor.  However I don’t know what they activity gives GREAT amounts of time to become friends.  Thats were Gospel transformation happens.

It’s going to kill your patience and will stretch your selfishness but in the end you will be more like Jesus if you loves those that are in a different social class that you.

Do we see people like He sees them?  I pray that the Holy Spirit crushes my arrogance and continues to let me see people like He sees them.