Saturday Reading: James 2 1-4
Key Verse: James 2 4
4 Did you not make a difference among yourselves and became judges with evil thoughts?
Key Verse: James 2 4
4 Did you not make a difference among yourselves and became judges with evil thoughts?
Devotion:
If we are going to profess to be Christians, then we have to act Christ-like. This means that we must be focusing on the soul and not on the outward appearance of each person we meet. We are all guilty of this at one stage or another, choosing between people just because of the way that they are dressed. We are all guilty of giving more attention to people who are dressed in a more proper way than those who are not. Why else do we get dressed up smartly in order to go for a job interview even though the job will not entail any customer contact?
If we are going to profess to be Christians, then we have to act Christ-like. This means that we must be focusing on the soul and not on the outward appearance of each person we meet. We are all guilty of this at one stage or another, choosing between people just because of the way that they are dressed. We are all guilty of giving more attention to people who are dressed in a more proper way than those who are not. Why else do we get dressed up smartly in order to go for a job interview even though the job will not entail any customer contact?
When we take on that sort of mantel, we are becoming judges of others – or at least that is the way that we are acting. Christ alone is able to judge us and not ourselves. We are not even fit to judge ourselves, let alone other people. We can identify where we go wrong, and where other people go wrong, but we are not fit to blame them for doing wrong because of the amount of things we do wrong. We may like to think that we are always dressed properly and that we give a good impression, but unless that goes right through to our souls, then we are not dressed properly before God. That is where we all fall down.
We need to be able to look at people for what they are and not what we identify them as by simply looking at them. Christ does not give regard to the outward appearance and will not choose one man over another just because they are dressed in a suit! We will choose people over others because of the way that we see them acting. Christ will choose people by the way they are thinking. It is the thought that bring out the action and not the other way round. That does not mean that we have the right to judge others because we see them do something wrong – because we have already thought about doing things wrong before we have got that far.
Points to Ponder:
How often do you turn away people because they don’t look right?
What would you do if God turned you away because you did not wear the right clothes?
How often do you turn away people because they don’t look right?
What would you do if God turned you away because you did not wear the right clothes?