Have
you ever had the experience of reading a passage of scripture that you have
read many times before but you read it one day and God speaks to you through it
and reveals a truth that you had not seen before? Well, I had that experience
again this week. I was reading 1 Peter 2:9 this week and God showed me
something that I had not seen before.
1
Peter 2:9
You
are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own
possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of
darkness into His marvelous light.
The
things that God showed me were that we are God’s chosen race and His holy
nation.
Those
who Jesus has called out of darkness and into His light are His race and His
nation. Jesus brings people from all human races, nations, cultures, and
languages and unites them into a people that does not judge themselves or
others by their race or ethnicity or nationality or culture or language. They
don’t say these things don’t exist, but they don’t measure people by them. They
see each other as part of the same family, the family of God.
What
does this truth mean for me? What does this truth mean for us as God’s people?
It
means that our focus needs to on Jesus.
Hebrews
12:2
Fixing
our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. For the joy set
before Him He endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right
hand of the throne of God.
We
are not to fix our eyes on what is different or what could separate us but on
what unites us. No matter our race or nation or culture Jesus loves us and went
to the cross for us. So, the receiving of that truth makes us family.
Raise
the Roof and Remove the Walls is fixing our eyes on Jesus and letting His
death on the cross unite us.
It
means that God’s kingdom is what I am to seek.
Matthew
6:33
But
seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will
be added to you.
We
are not to work for or seek to honor or to serve anyone but Jesus. That means
the kingdom of God comes before my race or my nation or my culture. I see
others who are followers of Jesus as part of the same kingdom that I am a part
of and they are serving the same king, Jesus, that I am serving.
Raise
the Roof and Remove the Walls is living in community with other followers of
Jesus, serving the kingdom of God and our King Jesus.
It
means that my first love is Jesus and I will love others in the way I love
myself.
Mark
12:32
And
you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul,
and with all your mind and with all your strength.
In
1 John 4:18 we are told that perfect love casts out fear. When I love God and
that is the focus of my daily life, then it will cast out any fear, I have no
fear of people who may look or speak differently than how I look and speak. It
will cast out any suspicion that I might have of someone of a different
culture.
When
loving God with all that I am is my priority, that will lead me to love as He
loves. Jesus loves us as we are, and when I let God’s love guide my life, then
I will love others like Jesus loves others. And in John 13:35 Jesus says that it
is our love for others that will mark us as His disciples.
Raise
the Roof and Remove the Walls is loving God with all that we are and allowing
that love to empower us to really love others.
The
time is now for the church, God’s community of faith, to show the world a new
way. A way that does not measure the worth of a person by their race or
ethnicity or language or nationality or culture but by the truth that God loves
all His human creation and died for all of us and wants a relationship with all
of us.
It
is a way that loves others as Jesus loves us.
It
is a way that forgives others as Jesus forgives us.
It
is a way that unites God’s children and invites all people to come into a
relationship with Jesus as our Savior and Lord.
In
Unity with All God’s Children Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,
Joe
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