Removing the Invisible Walls: Humility

"...to be peaceable, gentle, showing all humility to all men." 
 Titus 3:2

Living in the countryside has caused me lose perspective of how the rest of the world lives. I'm presently visiting with my family in New York, where I lived until joining the military at the age of 20-years old. In the small town I lived in, which is situated about 45 miles north of New York City, the majority of residents were once entirely white. Since 9/11, it has turned into quite the international community, with people from nearly every race and cultural background. It seems nothing like it once was.

Although times have changed, there is still a tendency to treat the newcomers within this formerly white residential community like second-class citizens. Our country is the product of an utopian-minded social experiment intended to be a melting pot for a purpose, but there is a right and a wrong way to act within the melting pot...especially for a Christian. Since the fruit of the spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control - then it should be reflected through our humility and kindness to all men - not just to believers.

You may think that this sounds strange coming from someone who teaches separation, but we can still be separate and be peaceable, gentle, showing humility to all men.  The Word has instructed us to not be yoked to unbelievers, but that's not what I'm talking about. The Word also teaches that we need to be separate from those who teach [Biblical] falsehoods, and I'm not talking about that either. The local population is made up of people who are unbelievers and those who teach falsehoods, but we can still be respectful, and model this respectfulness to our children. How on earth will we be able to win the lost if we snub them? Isn't this more of the undercurrent coming from the world's way of doing things, than it is coming from Christ's way?

If we are truly changed by the blood of Christ, then we need to live outside of the spiritual synthesis that is being created, yet sensitive to the fact that our fellow man is lost. When we remove ourselves from the world's political and social mold and do as Jesus would have us do, suddenly the conflict of the dialectic dissolves. We don't need to contribute to the problem.

You may want to re-think your own racial and cultural integration...the invisible walls that you have unknowingly erected. I'm not trying to help erase injustices in the world, but I am trying to awaken those who are unwilling to see the bigger picture. Just as the song says:

Jesus loves the little children
All the children of the world
Black and yellow, red and white
They're all precious in His sight
Jesus loves the little children of the world.

Christians were meant to be salt and light to the world, not arrogant, disrespectful, and proud. Matthew Henry describes my point best when he wrote:

 "It is the misery of sinners, that they hate one another; and it is the duty and happiness of saints to love one another. And we are delivered out of our miserable condition, only by the mercy and free grace of God, the merit and sufferings of Christ, and the working of his Spirit." 

Let your life be a demonstration of His love.

"I will praise thee, O Lord my God, with all my heart: and I will glorify thy name for evermore." Psalm 86:12

Amen.

Further study on humility.