The first time I fell in love with Christ, He held me in a small hotel conference room. My youth group was lined up, holding hands, asking the Holy Spirit to come in. And He did. He showed up. For a group of people who didn’t look, or think, or live the same. He showed up in the midst of a family. A body not born from the same woman, but birthed by the same breath.
The pastor, the man who had a huge hand in changing my life, was white. The worship leader that helped break down my walls with her voice, didn’t look like me either. I think about my own revival, and how many unique souls were apart of it. I still remember Christ’s hand on my back, in that room, with those people, each one of us made different by the hand of God. That’s His body. That’s His bride. Every color, every ethnicity, every nation, invited to be apart of His kingdom.
We’ve forgotten that there’s no slave or free, Jew or Gentile, male or female in Chris Jesus. We’re all ONE in HIM. That means confronting some uncomfortable realities in our communities, and especially our local churches. It means standing firm that no race is above another, even in the smallest of circumstances. It means welcoming children of God, like the LGBTQ+ community, that have been neglected and condemned. It means showing compassion to the “black welfare queens” that have been unjustly labeled lazy mothers. It means breaking stereotypes we’ve considered to be normal, necessary, or even biblical.
Everything about the ministry of Christ seemed radical to the world, because they weren’t comfortable with the change in order. But His Gospel is truth. And He declares us all to be ONE in Christ Jesus. So we’ve got to treat each and every INDIVIDUAL that way. Because it’s both how God designed us to function and commanded us to live.
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