Acceptance: The Wisdom of Observable Love

How well do you accept other people?  Accept that they are different from you?  Accept their different gifts, abilities, skills, temperaments, and idiosyncrasies?  If everyone had your gifts, abilities, skills, temperament, and idiosyncrasies, would you even like them?  Or would they suddenly become competition instead of kindred spirits?

I cannot think of anyone more unlike me than Jesus.  He was/is perfect. 

And, well … I’m not.  He and I do not share the same gender, the same ethnicity, the same household income, language, even the same “religion.”  (Remember, of course, He was a faithful Jew and I am not).

Because of Acceptance: The Wisdom of Observable Love, I belong to Him.  He has accepted me despite the one thing I have in common with everyone besides Him.  He has accepted me though I am a sinner.

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Romans 5:8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

God doesn’t just say He accepts me.  He demonstrated it.  Jesus died on the Cross to say that forgiveness is available even though (and especially because) I am a sinner and can’t save myself.  I can’t save myself through self-help programs.  I can’t save myself through random acts of kindness or seeking world peace.  I can’t save myself by resisting or supporting elected officials.  I can’t save myself through Bible studies or mission trips.  I can’t save myself through intellectual development and scientific/ medical discoveries. 

What saves me (and can save you, too) is God’s observable love—the proof that God’s acceptance of us is based upon His character and not our performance.  It’s out there in the open.  It’s observable love.

God could have just said “My Son died for your sins in a hidden place in Antarctica or the Mojave or the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean or in the cloud tops high above Dubuque” and oh, just to trust that it happened even though no one saw it.  But He didn’t. 

He doesn’t ask for blind trust.  Why?  Because Acceptance is the Wisdom of Observable Love which means that someone must have observed it.  The Bible tells us there were many witnesses and we have 4 Gospel accounts recording that witness.

Have you received His acceptance?  If not, today’s a good day to observe the love He had and still has for you.  He displayed it on a Cross.  He died for you.   John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

If you have received His forgiveness and acceptance, can you do the lesser thing of forgiving others, accepting them, and showing them that wisdom of observable love … no matter how different from you they are?

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Father God, help us to appreciate the beauty of acceptance that even while we were still sinners, Jesus died to redeem Your Image in us.  Thank You, Father, that Your love is limitless and Your grace immeasurable.  Give us the courage to face our sins and repent.  Give us the grace to face our fellow man and the humility to accept him/her with observable love.  Help us to learn the meaning of other-person-centeredness and to take our eyes off ourselves.  Give us the ability to do the lesser thing of forgiving others who sin just as we have sinned … and to do it because we have been forgiven by the Sinless One whose blood paid for our acceptance.