White Collar

White Collar

James 2:1-9
My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, [the Lord] of glory, with respect of persons.  For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment;  And ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place; and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool: Are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts?
Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him? But ye have despised the poor. Do not rich men oppress you, and draw you before the judgment seats?  Do not they blaspheme that worthy name by the which ye are called?
If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well: But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors.

If we are truly honest with ourselves most of us would have to admit that we are respecters of persons in one regard or another.  There may be those who aren’t as smart or as accomplished as we are in areas.  They may not be as wealthy, as clean, as organized, as good of workers or live up to the standards we have for ourselves or the standards we consequently impose upon others.  We all have our measuring sticks that are most often formed by our prejudices, upbringing, circle of friends and personal opinions.  In the same way we look down on some, we elevate and look up to others who exceed our personal standard or accomplishments.  We often show our favoritism and respect more to the rich or accomplished who need it less than we do to the poor or less accomplished who may truly need it more.  If we truly search our hearts and attitudes most of us will find that we still have this white collar-blue collar mentality, richer-poorer, smarter-dumber, cooler-dorkier, more spiritual-less spiritual, fashionable-drab, any number of different areas in our lives where we make a class distinction.  Jesus didn’t make a very big impression with the white collar Pharisees when he hung around with the blue-collar sinners and publicans.  Jesus came to do away with these distinctions and make us realize that though He was God and the King of Kings, He laid it all down and became the servant of all.  He loved all the same and treated each one with dignity, love and respect.   Even for the least of men Jesus died and gave His life.  He was not a respecter of persons.  He didn’t give special favor to those who were rich or influential and He didn’t despise and reject those who were lowly, poor and undesirable.  Do we have these same values at work in our lives today?  I don’t know about you, but I see a lot of areas in my life that I fall short in this area.  There are too many areas that I am conditional with my love, my giving and my serving.
The Lord wants to speak to us today about repenting of these prejudices that we carry towards others either for or against.  We must see each one through the eyes and heart of the Father.  If God loved them enough to die for them, who am I to despise and judge them?  A quote was sent to me the other day that said something to the effect, “even God waits to till the end of a man’s life to judge him.”  Do we have the heart of a savior or a judge?  James says, if we are a respecter of persons, we sin.  Am I and are you willing to let the Christ in us, touch each person where they are at.  Are we willing humble ourselves to lift up and minister to the lowly and the unlovely?  The truth is, much of this takes us out of our comfort zone and puts our natural man in places it probably doesn’t want to be.  We are no longer living our lives for just us; we are the extension and expression of the life and love of God.  God is willing to go places we would rather not.  Will we go there with Him? Will we be His servants or are we too proud and too good?  Will we honor the rich, influential and powerful, who are often the ones who despise and ridicule you and your God while, in effect, we do the same thing to those that are lower down than we are on the pecking order of society?  God sees us all the same.  In the end we all face death and in death no one is above another.  What makes the difference is what we did in life.  Did we truly love God with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength?  Did we truly love our neighbor as ourselves?  The Lord showed us in the parables that our neighbor could be anyone we come into contact with in our lives.  If we don’t truly love God, how can we love our neighbor?  And if we don’t truly love our neighbor, how can we truly love God?  God’s love in us has to work both vertically and horizontally just like the cross of Jesus.  Maybe there are some areas we need to examine in our lives where we are those white-collar respecters of persons.  How deep does God’s love go in you and me?

Blessings,

kent