shortlady
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- Aug 3, 2005
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Valuing Others
READ: Luke 19:1-10
The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. —Luke 19:10
As a young person, Robert had many things working against him—poverty, a broken home, a violent neighborhood. He skipped school often and was difficult to handle. But when a friend was shot to death, he considered it a wake-up call. Determined to change his life, Robert worked hard to bring his grades from failing to top marks.
Yet the school counselor did not believe in him and told him that no college would accept him. But Robert proved him wrong. He graduated from college and pursued a career in education. He chose that career because, as he says, “Teachers saw me as a non-entity”—a person of little value. He didn’t want that to happen to others.
Jesus views everyone as significant. Zacchaeus was a dishonest tax collector (Luke 19:1-10). Jesus could have ignored him, but He saw him in the tree and called him by name.
It’s important that Christians acknowledge others as people with value. Brennan Manning writes, “A Christian who doesn’t merely see but looks at another communicates to that person that he is being recognized as a human being in an impersonal world of objects.”
Do the people we interact with know that we view them as valuable to us and to God? —Anne Cetas
Burdened people everywhere
Need to know what Christ has done;
They need to feel God’s love and care—
It was for them He sent His Son. —D. De Haan
Love people and not things, use things and not people.
READ: Luke 19:1-10
The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. —Luke 19:10
As a young person, Robert had many things working against him—poverty, a broken home, a violent neighborhood. He skipped school often and was difficult to handle. But when a friend was shot to death, he considered it a wake-up call. Determined to change his life, Robert worked hard to bring his grades from failing to top marks.
Yet the school counselor did not believe in him and told him that no college would accept him. But Robert proved him wrong. He graduated from college and pursued a career in education. He chose that career because, as he says, “Teachers saw me as a non-entity”—a person of little value. He didn’t want that to happen to others.
Jesus views everyone as significant. Zacchaeus was a dishonest tax collector (Luke 19:1-10). Jesus could have ignored him, but He saw him in the tree and called him by name.
It’s important that Christians acknowledge others as people with value. Brennan Manning writes, “A Christian who doesn’t merely see but looks at another communicates to that person that he is being recognized as a human being in an impersonal world of objects.”
Do the people we interact with know that we view them as valuable to us and to God? —Anne Cetas
Burdened people everywhere
Need to know what Christ has done;
They need to feel God’s love and care—
It was for them He sent His Son. —D. De Haan
Love people and not things, use things and not people.
