Romans 12:1-8
I go to
the grocery store often, perhaps too often.
Kristin and I (actually more Kristin) try to plan out our meals for the
week and shop accordingly, but I get hungry to make a certain meal or we forget
and ingredient or two and I end up making the short, 2 minute drive to the
store down the street. Because I’m there
too much, I know exactly where everything is and I can get in and out fairly
quickly. Almost every time I’m at the
store, I unconsciously play a little game with myself that’s a dangerous and
harmful one, and as I look at Romans 12 today, I realize just how dangerous it
is.
I judge
people. I’m a judger.
You
know what I’m talking about don’t you? (I hope!) The screaming child obviously has a poor
parent watching over them. The person
who is slow in making their selection at the butcher counter ahead of me is
obviously indecisive or judgmental about the products offered. The guy with the big case of beer is an
alcoholic. The woman wearing revealing
clothes is loose. The person paying with
food stamps is lazy. The list goes
on. Whenever I’m in a context where
there are people from all different cultures and walks of life; and my grocery
store is certainly one of them, I judge outward appearances and behavior and
put myself above just about every other person in that store in some way,
shape, or form.
And
that’s wrong; dead wrong. In fact, it’s
sinful. It’s heinous, ugly sin.
Romans
12 calls us to renew our minds as a spiritual act of worship. But the way that it calls us to that renewal
reaches out and grabs me by the scruff of the neck and forces me to look at
myself in the mirror. “For by the grace
given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you
ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the
measure of faith God has given you.”
Ouch.
I sit
in judgment on all these folks while clinging desperately to the grace given me
in Christ; a grace freely offered by God not because I deserve it, but because
of His love for me and because HE makes me worthy through the righteousness of
Jesus.
Not
because I’m clean and sober, or a great parent, or a snappy dresser or a
pastor, but because God wills it and gives me relationship with Him despite my
foolishness and sin. That has to
transform me, not just in how I view myself as a child of God, but in how I
view others; especially the least of these.
My response to God’s grace has to move me to see myself as a saint of
God through the grace of Christ, AND view others as potential grace-saved
children of the King.
Maybe I
shouldn’t go to the grocery store so often.
Maybe better would be to go to the grocery store differently; with my
eyes open to all of the other image bearers of God that I’ll see there who may
be fellow revelers in the grace of Jesus Christ.
