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Read Galatians 3:26-29

26 For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. 27 And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ,like putting on new clothes. 28 There is no longer Jew or Gentile,slave or free,male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And now that you belong to Christ,you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs,and God’s promise to Abraham belongs to you. (NLT)

It is sometimes so hard to resist the thought that our church,our brand of the faith is somehow superior to other varieties. We have got it right whereas the others have gone astray at key points. We make the mistake of equating our own faith tradition with the historic Christian faith. A wiser conclusion would be to be very thankful for our own tradition,humbly recognising its comparative strengths whilst all the time recognising that other followers of Jesus might see things differently.

God has no ‘pet churches’. He doesn’t rub his hands with glee at the thought of being present in one sort of church on a Sunday and groan in anticipatory boredom at the thought of being elsewhere. He loves his whole church indiscriminately. As Paul reminds us here,what unites us is greater than what differentiates us. It is not as if there are literally no males or females,or no ethnic differences in our churches. It is just that they are transcended by our common belonging to God through Jesus.

By all means acknowledge and even celebrate our differences. But never let them become the focus. Never let them nudge us into a position of advantage or privilege. God is not an evangelical or a Catholic or a Pentecostal or a Protestant. God has no favourite Christians: he reckons we are all utterly imperfect and utterly wonderful.

Blessings
David Reay