Monday 22 June 2009

Monday Reading: 1 Timothy 5:1-2
 
Key Verse: 1 Timothy 5:1-2
1  Do not sharply rebuke an elder, but exhort as a father, and the younger ones as brothers,
2  older women as mothers, the younger as sisters in all purity.
 
Devotion:
I wonder, have you seen any old people “get the short end of the stick”? Quite often we see people being ignored or treated badly just because they are old, infirm, disabled or even in the “wrong” ethnic group. We have news items just about every day reminding us of people who have been taken advantage of just because someone else knew they would not be able to fight back. This seems to be a part of society that has stayed with us from very early on in human existence; and yet it is a part that we do not like...

You would think that we (as humans) have been around long enough that we should be treating people as people and not as segregated groups according to our own sets of rules; yet we persist on dividing up people into boxes so we can treat them differently. One of the things that Christ tried to instil on people while He was on earth was that we ought to treat people with respect, no matter where they come from. We also need to respect the older people because they are the ones that have been around longer and should be able to guide us in what we do – so long as they too are following Christ’s examples.

When we come together as a church we need to put aside our political and official stations or positions and come together as one family under God. When we apply God’s laws, it must be equally to all. When we echo Christ’s love, it must be equally to all and not targeted at the people we think that deserve it. When we come together we need to remember that Christ is not a respecter of social and political positions but rather how we treat Him. Our treating of each other shows that directly!

Points to Ponder:
How do you like to be treated?

Are you treating others like that?