5-19-2025

Good Morning All,

  Galatians 3:28; “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male or female, for you are all one in Christ.”

   Why is it that we always seem to look for the differences at first?  Why do we seek those things which we use to divide and separate?  It often starts out innocently enough: it is how we identify individuals.  We see Suzy as the short, blonde girl and Billy as the tall red head.  But all too soon we take those differences and use them to hold others down or try to push them back; all in an effort to get to the front.  So, we take those differences, and we begin to categorize people.  This group is greedy; this group is lazy, this group is selfish, this group is made up of criminals.  (I didn’t list who, but you probably filled in the blanks).  Instead of looking at what we have in common and trying and building on that; we build walls to keep some back from us or out of our sight or away from us.

    This is always the tool of the devil. He tries to divide, to separate and then to conquer. He isolates us so that we no longer see value in other people. This leads us to see no value in ourselves. This leads to hopelessness. People do not often see the path which the devil takes; he is the “father of all lies” after all, but by leading us to be divisive and hateful, we separate ourselves from others and we separate ourselves from God’s community. This emptiness leads to despair and the devil has a field day with this. He torments, attacks, confuses and causes us to bury ourselves in our own empty thoughts.

    Yet when God looks at people, He sees one thing, a sinful creature.  Before God we are all the same.  There is no difference; we are all sinners deserving eternal punishment.  But by God’s grace, God sees only righteousness and holiness when He looks at His redeemed children.  All God sees is Christ’s atoning sacrifice.  He sees us as one in Christ, holy and undefiled.  We are not male or female, tall or short, fat or skinny, black, brown, white, yellow, purple or orange; we are the redeemed children of God.  That is how God sees us and that is how we should see our fellow believer.  We are all the same.  We are forgiven sinners who live by God’s grace and mercy.  We need to tear down the walls we build and see what God sees, forgiven creatures.

    This is why God leads us to walk with him and with all his children. We are a community of believers. We are all redeemed, baptized children of God. We all share the same fate. We deserve death but we have been given life by our Savior Jesus. We are one in the same and when we walk in this truth, we walk in God’s holy truth and will.

Father in heaven, too often we let our sinful nature lead us into prejudice and suspicion.  Forgive us our sin.  Guide us Lord to remove the walls and the barriers which we build between us and our fellow believers.  Cause us to see them as our brothers in Christ and to feel their pain and to share in their joy to your glory here on earth.  In Jesus’ precious Name we pray, Amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret