Romans 15:7
Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.
This passage does NOT say to judge one another. But, that is exactly what we do. We use our Christianity to put ourselves on a pedestal and we judge everyone below us. Why do we do that? Jesus NEVER judged anyone! Jesus was compassionate, merciful and humble. He never put Himself above anyone else. He even said that He was not sent to be served, but to serve (Matthew 20:28). Jesus had every right to put Himself on a pedestal. He IS the King of Kings and Lord of Lords! But, Jesus was not like that.
We, as Christians, need to reread the Gospels and really let the characteristics of Christ sink into our hearts. We need to embody Christ. We need to be more accepting of those that are different than we are. We need to be more accepting of those with different opinions and not assume they are wrong because we might not agree. Do we think that God loves one of us more than another? Well, God does NOT have favorites (Romans 2:11). God loves the homeless as much as He loves the millionaire. He loves the drug addict as much as He loves the pure in heart. We ALL have imperfections. We ALL mess up. We ALL have made HUGE mistakes at one time or another. We have ALL lived in sin. None of us has any reason to condemn or judge anyone else.
My challenge to you (and myself!) is to go back and reread the Gospels and write down in a notebook the characteristics of Jesus. Then we need to make an conscious effort to embody those characteristics on a daily basis. Live like Jesus. Don’t expect everyone to serve you. Go out and serve others. If the King of Kings was humble enough to wash the disciples feet, we should be too.
Patti Burris 