By David ReayFriday 3 Mar 2017LifeWords DevotionalsFaithReading Time: 0 minutes
Transcript:
Read 1 Corinthians 1:26-27
26-27 Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don’t see many of “the brightest and the best” among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isn’t it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these “nobodies” to expose the hollow pretensions of the “somebodies”? (THE MESSAGE)
Most of us are aware that our culture is obsessed with appearances. Having the right face, the right body, is essential if we are to be accepted. Some of us are also aware that the Christian church can be guilty of that sort of thing too.
Those ‘upfront’ in churches can find that they are assessed according to their appearance. If you haven’t got the right looks or right shape, then you might be asked to step down. And next time you look at publicity material for churches or Christian organisations, take a look at the faces and the people. They are, shall we say, what we might call ‘good-looking’.
Nothing wrong with being attractive. But are we yet too concerned with appearances? Does this send a message that the church, while accepting all and sundry, is rather more taken with those with the good looks? Are the overweight, the disabled, the dishevelled receiving a message that they are welcome as long as they stay out of the spotlight?
What Paul says in our text should be our guiding principle. We are not part of God’s purposes because of anything that society and culture might prize. The church testifies to the grace of God not by showing the world how hip and glamorous it is but by showing how broken people can be mended and how a broken world might be put back together again.
Blessings
David Reay