Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Romans 15:7



Romans 15:7 - Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.




If we are to accept others as Christ accepts us we need to look at just how completely we are accepted by Him. Most of us, I think, have at one time or another have felt left out. For whatever reason, we don’t fit in with a particular group and we feel unaccepted.
To be honest, I think that we all have things in our lives that if people knew we feel that they would reject us. Some of these things are more obvious; some we do a pretty good job of hiding. Let me tell you though, you can’t hide anything from Jesus. He sees it all, the good and the bad. Jesus knows all of your deepest darkest secrets.
This can be both terrifying and encouraging. Terrifying in the sense that Jesus knows all your sin, but encouraging in the fact that He accepts you anyway. He accepts you even when you consider yourself unacceptable.
You don’t have to change your life or behavior to come to Jesus. He accepts you just the way you are, sin and all. Now to be clear, He may ask you to change some things later, but regardless, He accepts you no matter how many times you screw up. That is how we are to accept others.
If someone wrongs you, forgive them and accept them. Is there something about someone that you find incredibly annoying? Find a way past it and accept them. The only way we will make a difference in peoples lives is if we accept them unconditionally, just as Christ does for us.
We are to be unified in Christ and the only way to do that is through acceptance of each other. Doing this also brings praise to God, because it is living according to His design.

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