January 20

ACCEPTING OTHERS

Father, thank You for bringing me to this place and this time today. I ask You to speak to me right now, and to let Your Word breathe life into my heart. Please use these next few moments to bring me to more of a fullness of You and to learn more of Your Glory and how to leave the footprints of Jesus everywhere I go today. In Jesus Name I pray. Amen!

Read Luke 3:1-6

As I read these 6 verses my eyes are drawn to the final phrase:

“and all mankind will see God’s salvation.”

The past few days, I have had the privilege of spending a lot of time with several friends from church. Yesterday afternoon and evening I spent a considerable amount of time with a particular new, close friend. We both started attending this church about the same time, and were talking about our experiences there, and seeing how similar they are. One of the disheartening things the course of our conversation unearthed was that we both see the same cliques among our age group. I must say that within my church and my age group they are extremely accepting and welcoming of people. Still though, there are cliques.

Why is this? Why do we cling to those like us? Is it bad that we do? I am not sure it is necessarily evil to be friends with those much like us, and for those friendships to be strong. The problem comes when we start to exclude those unlike us.

These verses are describing John the Baptist role in preparation of the coming Messiah, the Messiah that will bring God’s salvation for all mankind. The Greek wording used here is to be understood as including both Jews and Gentiles. God’s salvation is not at all exclusive. It is there as a gift for all. We have got to realize that we, as representatives of God, cannot become exclusive in our friendships. We must be willing to include all people in our network of friends.

Today I plead with you to leave His footprints by being accepting of all people regardless of sex, race, politics, or even college football team affiliation.

Leave His footprints as you walk today!