RESPECT - Find Out What It Means to Me

"My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don't show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, "Here's a good seat for you," but say to the poor man, "You stand there" or "Sit on the floor by my feet," have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?" James 2:1-4 (NIV)

This week, I have really been inspired to figure out how to make community service a bigger part of my daily and weekly life. After leading an SBC to Houston last week, I have had time to reflect on what that means to me.  Living and serving for a week unveiled my deep-seated discontent with the way that I live my life here on the ACU campus. We had our eyes pealed for one week of things that God would do in our lives and He did. Why not live like that now that we are back? 

So with this inspiration in my heart, I decided to go and serve Breakfast on Beech St. because we had worked with "the homeless" in Houston at an organization that is called Crossroads. So, in the dark hours of what seemed to be the night, I, feeling very persecuted, got up and went to help cook breakfast for these people that I could touch for God. It was great, but I noticed a problem in my heart. Referring back to the scripture, I was discriminating against them in my heart. I wasn't treating them like friends; I was treating them like they were homeless. I would like to propose a paradigm shift in that the people we were serving are not "the homeless" but people, in a homeless condition. Some of these people showed me that with the economy, almost anyone could be homeless in the blink of an eye. Our culture would like us to believe that these are all poor, bad, terrible, dangerous people that are not worth being treated like humans. They are NOT bad people overall. Overall, they are people with lives and families and should be respected as such. 

I think that James was trying to say this in the passage above. He was emphasizing that people are people and believers are believers. We need to love all those around us actively. This isn't something that just happens; each of us has to actively pursue this goal, every minute, every day. That is my new calling for myself.