TODAY'S WORD FOR TUESDAY MARCH 24, 2015.
ACCEPTANCE
Receive as worthy of being accepted; receive with approval or favor.
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Romans 12:2.
Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions and giving of thanks be made for all men, for this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior. I Timothy 2:1.
When Jesus was here on this earth the Jewish people literally despised the Samaritans and did not accept them. They did all they could do in order not to meet or talk with a Samaritan. We read in John 4 that Jesus met a Samaritan woman at the well and began to talk with her. When Jesus asked for a drink she was surprised and wanted to know why He was talking to her as no Jewish man would ever talk to a Samaritan woman. Nevertheless, Jesus continued to talk with her and because Jesus accepted her she believed in Him and accepted His gift of “living water.”
She went back to her village and led many Samaritans to become believers in Jesus. The good news that we can learn from this, is that Jesus came to this earth for all of us. And He accepts all who come to Him in faith believing for forgiveness of their sins.
In Romans 15:7 we are told to accept one another just as Christ accepted you in order to bring praise to God. As Christians we are to accept and encourage other Christians. Also we must be willing to accept others, who do not know the Lord that we meet even if we do not condone what they do, so we can introduce them to Christ.
Jesus knew that the Samaritan woman was an immoral woman. He did not shun her for her race, social position or her sins. He accepted her as someone who needed His saving grace.
People today are hungry for acceptance. Children in school do every thing they can, including lowering their standards, to be accepted by their peers. Adults are much the same. They want to be included in “THE GROUP” just as children do.
Paul tells us in Romans 14:1-- “Do not refuse to accept someone who is weak in faith. And do not argue with him about opinions.”
We, as Christians, need to make people feel important and needed. This way they will feel accepted and will more than likely be open to hear about Jesus. If we see a fellow Christian weak in their faith, we should not argue about things in their life we disagree with, but lovingly accept them and encourage them to help them grow in their faith.
Back when we attended school at Wheaton College in Illinois, I (Ken) remember being in an ethics class where we had a discussion about a small group of students who were not living up to the standards set by the college and evidently because of this they were not being accepted by many of our peers. As a class we began praying for this group and about a week later one of the students in our class told us that she had approached one of the people in the group.
The one thing I remember her saying was that they did not feel accepted at the school so why should they change their life style? This small group had all come from home situations where living a much looser life was acceptable. We believe that because of our prayers and the fact everyone made the effort to show them, acceptance rather than rejection, a positive impact was made on them because being accepted, soon the group came around and everyone could see their lives being changed. Fellow students approached them with love and not with criticism. We learned from this experience that rejection and criticism only drives the unsaved farther away from God.
We must deal with many people who do things that are unacceptable to us as a believer in Jesus but this is an example that should remind each of us to do all we can to make such people we touch shoulders with feel accepted as a person.
In I Timothy, we are exhorted that we are to pray for all people not just those who are believers.
Our memory verse for this week is found in I Timothy 6:14.
That you keep this commandment without spot, blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ’s appearing.
Help me to find people today who need to feel accepted. May these people see Christ through my words and my deeds. Help my children to stand up for what they believe and not to be swayed by the crowd. Help me to do what is good and acceptable in Your sight so that I may know beyond any doubt the good and acceptable and perfect will of God for my life.
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