Luke 17

He threw himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him--and he was a Samaritan. ~ Luke 17:16 NIV

In this passage Jesus heals ten men who had leprosy. He sends them to go see the priests. As they wer going to the priests they were healed. However, onyl one of the ten returned to thank Jesus. It is paritcularly interesting that the man who returned was a Samaritan. In the time samritans and Jews were essentially forbidden to interact with each other. Jesus was a Jew.

It is very interesting that bothe Jesus and the man complelty ignored the rules of their society. Jesus di dnto refrain from healing the man because he was a Samaritan and the man did not allow the fact that Jesus was Jewish to prevent him from approaching him in the first place and then returning to him after he was healed.

There is a great and very simple lesson to be learned here.

Jesus loves the little children

All the children of the world

Red and yellow, black and white

The are precious in his sight

Jesus loves the little children of the world.

As politically incorrect as the song is it holds truth in it. There is no such thing as colour, race, background or any other division when it comes to who qualifies for the love of Jesus. It is very important that we as believers show no dsicrimination when it comes to sharing God's love with people. every person in the world deserves to know the love of God.

Do we stare when a person shows up in our churches dressed differently then the rest of us?

Do we avoid talking to a person who looks frightening or strange?

What about age? Do we avoind talking to someone because they are older than us?

Do we avoind talking to teenagers because we can't relate and they are intimidating?

Do we discriminate with God's love?

It is not and cannot be our responsibility to determine who deserves to hear about God's love. Jesus lived on this earth, died on our cross and was resurrected for everyone. Not just for who we are comfortable with. God asks us to live His love for everyone.

It is natural to talk with and share God's truth with those we are comfortable with. So I am going to make a consscious effort to develop relationships with people who I may not normallyor naturally develop a relationship with. God can adn will show his love so I must be careful that I do not try and dtermine for God who he can or cannot share truth with. Offer life to.

God,

Your love is incredible because it smashes through any barrier that we may restrict ourselves with. every person everywhere is your child. Thank you for beign the example of how to love. thnak you for Jesus who so clearly showed us how you feel about social barriers. I pray that you will give me the courage to share your love with someone who I normally would hesitate to associate with. Please keep me from being too stubborn and intnetionally naive about whether or not I allow barriers of any kind to keep me from sharing your love. Please give me the courage and faith in you to smash through those barriers and to bloldly let your love flourish in my life. thank you for being the ultimate example.

Amen