Day 2018 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Luke 6:27 NIV

I was presented the chance earlier today to experience one of those amazing opportunities to realize that I'd been wrong. You see my family and I had bought some Bibles to send to a couple of people, and we just hadn't gotten around to sending them yet. Since the time that we bought them, we kind of had this weird and unfortunate falling out of sorts with one of them. And I'm embarrassed to admit that it had me second guessing whether or not to send the gift. 

Seeing as how this difference of opinion has gone, I had gotten it in my mind that I didn't want to send something to someone only for them to throw it away. But all along, my mom has been there saying no, we need to send it anyway. And today, we finally got them boxed up and sent out. But if anything, I may have ended up getting the biggest gift out of everyone involved.

We don't get to decide who is worthy of our kindness. We don't get to pick and choose who we're going to do good things for. We definitely don't have any grounds to decide who we will or will not share God's word with. So I can see clear as day that I was out of bounds on this one, and I humbly and readily admit my lapse in judgement. But that's the cool thing about this whole new life of faith that we're all working on and in every single day. We get to learn!

So often we only extend kindness to those we feel are worthy. We're only good to those who we have decided deserve it. Thank goodness God doesn't work like that! We're here to be the vessels that carry Christ, His light, and His amazing story of redemption and salvation to the world. We don't decide who gets it. We don't make the choices. We don't call the shots. He calls us to go into all the world and spread the Gospel. He never once said pick and choose or only tell those that you feel are worthy of this life-changing gift.

We are seeing this kind of thing running rampant in our world. People are all kinds of angry and divided. They are only willing to be nice to you if you agree with them or can offer them something. We've decided that we have the right to be judge, jury, and executioner. But we couldn't be more wrong! Again, we're here to be the beacons of hope and goodness that point everyone to Christ. That needs to be our only goal.

There will always be people that we just don't see eye-to-eye with. There will always be people who don't like us and don't treat us with kindness and compassion. None of that will ever change the fact that we're still called to be kind to them. It will never free us from the responsibility of sharing Christ and His goodness with them. So we need to learn to put our own opinions and feelings aside and remain focused on the task at hand. 

Christ's love and kindness have no requirements. He freely gives them to the same exact people who nailed Him to the cross and cursed His name. He still offers them to broken and messed up sinners like you and I. Our kindness can't have any requirements either. After all, we're here to follow His example, not twist it around to meet our own.