For most of us salads are much better with our favorite dressing. When it comes to people salads God enjoys a vast variety of dressings. Surely He enjoys Italian with its zest or French with its smoothness or maybe Russian dressing. According to Scripture God does not discriminate He must love them all. See Romans 2:11, “For God does not show favoritism.”
Paul talks about dressing God’s people. However, he refers to a different definition of dressing. In Galatians 3:27 he writes, “As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” And in Ephesians 6 he wrote, “Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.” Paul has quite a wardrobe for us. And once we are well dressed in Christ our lives will be so much better.
One specific way our lives improve is we cease thinking about others as “they” and become more inclusive. We learn to be “we.” If we go back to Galatians3:28 he helps us with the following understanding. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” I long for us to see ourselves as “one.” Can you imagine with this straightforward counsel some churches still discriminate against women? In a salad the carrots don’t think they are better than the cucumbers, who do not see themselves as better than the sweet peppers, who do not think they add more to the salad than the tomatoes.
Let all of us get dressed in Christ and watch the wonders of unity that will follow.
Written by Roger Bothwell on July 21, 2017
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