Thursday, March 7, 2013

We regard no one from a worldly point of view!


Sometimes the first line gets you.  And these days it does even more. Everybody is trying to get our attention with one line.  Sometimes one line in an article is all we need to notice a story we want to read.  But does the story live up to what we wanted it to be?  In many instances we rarely find that the content was as intriguing as the headline.  Yet, Scripture brings us into a place where one line can grab our interest, and after deeper consideration we find a truth we had not considered for awhile--or ever.
            This week was like that for me.  The line from our Epistle is “we regard no one from a worldly point of view.”  We regard no one…not a single person from a worldly point of view.  Why is this hard?  Because the world has a way of influencing and tempering how we view people.  It is hard to break free from it.  It is so ingrained in our heads that it is almost impossible to change.
            Let me give you an example.  Think about a potato.  I grew up watching every baked potato being carefully washed and wrapped in foil. In my first experiences with cooking, I, too. found myself wrapping my baked potato in foil and putting it in the oven.  After my love of cooking grew I noticed that not a single chef ever advised covering a potato in foil.  I was so confused.  Why would you not wrap it in foil?  Won’t it get too dry and not provide the soft inside you are looking for?  But lo and behold, oil and a good dose of salt does just fine, and the skin of the potato provides a natural protection from the heat of the oven. The skin also gets crispy and great to eat instead of soggy in the foil.  It was like a mind-blowing concept that I did not need to cover my potato in foil.  Yet, the new truth grew on me and I began to ask the opposite question.  Why would you cover your potato with foil?
            The same can be true of this passage.  If God created us all uniquely, why would we look at each other with judging eyes?  Why would we not appreciate all of God’s creation?  Lent is a time to focus again on the new creation God makes us because of Jesus.  Jesus wanted all of us to have that.  Jesus was not exclusive.  He wanted all people to know who He was, and that He came to rescue them from that worldly view.  This week we dive into that.  How can we, as faithful men and women of God, look at people as ones created by Christ?  It may be like taking the foil off our potato.  It may seem different from how we always have done it, but in the end I believe we will be saying the same thing--why would we look at people with a worldly, judging point of view?  

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