[Thursday's Devotional] - Who You Lookin' At?

Have you noticed how much we love to watch other people?  With reality TV shows offering us constant surveillance of "the public" and "celebrities", we are keen to watch them going into melt-down or striking up dysfunctional relationships with their fellow inmates.   We feast on their frustration, tiredness, drunkenness, jealousy, spite and selfishness in a way that is surely reminiscent of the gladiators in Roman times or the people watching public executions in the 18^th century.

There is also a tendency to be judgemental of others when we feed on a diet of reality TV or spend our lives looking at others on the covers of magazines or in the pages of newspapers.  It is all too easy to compare ourselves with others and find ourselves mentally assessing whether they are "better" or "worse" than us as if we are all positioned on a ladder of morality (or beauty, or talent or popularity).  Perhaps you imagine are 3 rungs of the ladder lower than her, but 5 rungs higher than him?  How liberating it is that God doesn't have a "pass mark", we are not to view our lives as an exam where good deeds push us up the ladder and bad deeds drop us down.  Life is not a game of Snakes & Ladders, here is what Paul says in Ephesians:

God raised us from death to life with Christ Jesus, and he has given us a place beside Christ in heaven.  God did this so that in the future world he could show how truly good and kind he is to us because of what Christ Jesus has done.  You were saved by faith in God, who treats us much better than we deserve. This is God's gift to you, and not anything you have done on your own.  It isn't something you have earned, so there is nothing you can brag about.  God planned for us to do good things and to live as he has always wanted us to live. That's why he sent Christ to make us what we are.  Ephesians 2:6-10 [CEV]

Heavenly Father, thank you for sending Jesus, your own son, to die for us and pay the price for our sin.  Help us not to listen to the judgements of this world and to resist the temptation to judge others.  Fill us with your Spirit and help us to grow in faith and knowledge of you.  Amen.

Dave MacLellan