Thursday 17 Feb 2022

February 17: James 2:1-4

Key Verse: James 2:1
My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favouritism.

Devotion:
If you are like me, then you struggle with these verses on a regular occasion! We all are swayed at some stage by riches of this world and we tend to judge people according to those riches whether we like it or not. We know it is not right, yet we do still treat people differently just by the way they look or by their family backgrounds! The sooner we recognise the faults we have, the sooner we can work with them instead of allowing them to dictate your life without you thinking about it.

Jesus came into this world as King of Kings, Lord of Lords; yet He chose to be born into a family where controversy was there to start with and where He would have to start His life as a carpenter to make ends meet for the family. He chose this because this is how God planned things and needed things to happen.

We do not know God’s plans, but we do know what He has asked of us and we should be taking special note of those commands. We have many examples of the way people have acted in our bibles and the things which have gone wrong because of the way they acted. We have been told about the amazing things Jesus was able to do because of His open love to all of us, a love which did not show favouritism!

This does not mean it is easy to follow that example set by Him. It is hard and we are warned by the apostles we need to take care not to be swayed by our favouritism toward people who do not match up with our ideals in life. Jesus was able to show His love toward us even though we have done so many things wrong and worked against Him. He has shown us the way to love openly!

Points to Ponder:
Do you find it hard to be friends with people you don’t like?

Is Jesus asking you to be friends, or just to love them?