Good morning!
Welcome to your morning coffee! May our Heavenly Father help us to see our whole selves today. Father, in your word you do so many wonderful things, chief of which is reveal yourself to us, your will, your attributes, your desires. But you also reveal us to ourselves. Your word uses other men and women from across time to hold a mirror up to our own weakness, our own sin, our own daily desperate need for your help. Father, in the name of your son Jesus, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, our indwelling, inspiring guide, reveal any offensive ways within us. And lead us in your way everlasting! And may we share in your delight at our desire to please you above ourselves!
Your Morning Song: "Joy of the Lord" by Rend Collective Experiment
Your Morning Scripture: James 2:1-4
My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,” have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?
I am amazed at how often and how easily I pride myself in not doing certain sins, while not thinking at all about whether or not I do others. I can't remember the last time I gave a second's thought as to whether or not I favor some people over others.
And so the takeaway today is then two-fold. How daily mindful are we of our whole selves? Are there some sins we are more aware of? Are there some sins that we are ignoring? Are we showing favoritism to some sins, getting on soapboxes about our Sunday service special sin we don't indulge in, while other sins run free in our Monday shadows where no one else can see? How wholly aware of our whole selves are we?
Do we even notice the small little ways we show favoritism to others? Money? Age? Personality? Ethnicity? Gender? Popularity? Preferences? Is there any limit to the ways in which we daily divide people into categories ultimate labeled, "I like" and I don't like"? No. There is not. And we ourselves are likely a thousand times daily divided by others. It is our sin nature, the power of sin defeated but the presence still remains.
Let us be mindful of God's faithfulness to reveal to us our whole selves, if we are brave enough to ask him to. And let our response be repentance and rejoicing. And let us do all this as brothers and sisters in Jesus our Christ or those that might someday be, without any thought to any other labels.
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