THINK TOGETHER
Has anyone ever been mean to you just because you were different? How did that make you feel?
READ TOGETHER
God loves everyone. And God loves everyone without partiality. Do you know what partiality means? Partiality is a word that means we treat some people better than we treat others, or that we love some people more than we love others. God never does that. He never shows partiality. He never loves one person more than another. Jesus died for everyone on the same cross, loving everyone the same amount.
And when we trust in Jesus we can learn to not show partiality too. Listen to what James says to his church about partiality:
James 2:1. My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory.
None of us likes partiality do we? None of us likes it when we think someone else is getting special treatment. Have you ever said “that’s not fair” to your mom or dad, or to your teacher? Have you ever felt like your brother or sister was getting more of something than you? More ice cream? More turns on the video game? And even as grown-ups we hate partiality. We hate it when we think someone is being treated unfairly just because of how they look, or what neighborhood they live in.
But even though we all hate partiality, we all tend to be partial. We all like some people better than others. We can all be unkind sometimes and treat others in a mean way. Have you ever treated someone in a mean way just because they were different from you? That’s partiality. Have you ever been nicer to one person over another? That’s partiality.
And God hates partiality.
So how do we stop ourselves from treating people differently? Read James 2:1 again – show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory.
Our partiality goes away as we trust in Jesus. Usually we treat people differently in order to make ourselves feel good, or in order to fit in, or to be “cool.” But what if Jesus made us feel good? What if Jesus made us “cool?” What if we knew that Jesus loves us no matter what? Then we wouldn’t need to treat everyone differently in order to fit in, because we would know that we always fit in with Jesus.
Because of Jesus God loves us the same as everyone else.
With Jesus we can love others the same, even those who are different from us.
DO SOMETHING TOGETHER
Zootopia is good movie showing the partiality to lives in our hearts. Here’s the trailer:
PRAY TOGETHER
Jesus,
You never show partiality. You love us all the same. Help me to love others all the same too.
Amen.
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