Jesus Christ makes all the difference

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So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. Galatians 3:27-29

Jesus Christ makes all the difference.

All distinctions fall away when we come into a relationship with Christ. Whatever once divided us is gone. Whatever once could have made us enemies is gone. Prejudice, bigotry, discrimination are no more.

Christ does a do-over of your mind. In Christ, everything changes, including how you see people. You saw them one way before Christ got ahold of you; you see them differently now.

We can see this illustrated in Philemon, the shortest book in the Bible. Paul sent a slave named Onesimus back to his master with a note pinned to his chest announcing a change in perspective Philemon must honor if he was to be a follower of Christ. He wrote:

I am sending him—who is my very heart—back to you. I would have liked to keep him with me so that he could take your place in helping me while I am in chains for the gospel. But I did not want to do anything without your consent, so that any favor you do would not seem forced but would be voluntary. Perhaps the reason he was separated from you for a little while was that you might have him back forever— no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother. He is very dear to me but even dearer to you, both as a fellow man and as a brother in the Lord. (Philemon 1:12-16)

Paul minces no words here. Notice how he makes the slave equal to the master; indeed, as one who could stand in for him. If there was any prejudice left in the heart of Philemon towards his former slave, Onesimus, that comment would have dealt it a painful, serious blow.

And then, in his final word to Philemon about this, Paul gives us a clear perspective on how we should see everyone. Every man and woman is at least my fellow man, at best, my brother or sister in the Lord.

How the world would be different if we all saw each other this way!

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2 Responses to Jesus Christ makes all the difference

  1. TimC says:

    I might have missed this discussion, but one aspect of the racism question might be called “mistaken racism”. There are two sides to this coin. On one side, I mistakenly think that you hate me, when in fact, there is no hate present. That is my fault, my problem, but I just might shoot you because I think you hate me. To resolve this, I need to figure out how to start a conversation with you, but I don’t know if you really hate me or not, so I don’t know how to get started.

    The other side of that coin is when you mistakenly think that I hate you, when in fact, there is no hate present. That is your fault, your problem, but you might shoot me because you think that I hate you. I have absolutely no clue as to your mistaken ideas. As before, you have a problem in trying to figure out how to resolve this. Shooting first is not a solution. There’s not much I can do about it, because I don’t know that the problem exists or what the problem is.

    The facts are :
    I don’t hate you, so don’t shoot.
    Cops don’t hate people, so don’t shoot cops (I know several police officers who are incredible people and I don’t know any bad cops.)
    Unfortunately, there are many people who think that cops hate them and shoot first rather than starting a calm conversation.
    And unfortunately, this problem has many of America’s Finest on edge. It’s not the officers fault, but everyone has a problem to discuss.

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