"You're My Favorite."

How much differently would you treat a person if God was standing right beside them screaming that they were his favorite person? I know that personally I'd be a whole heck of a lot nicer. It's pretty simple really, if God's there watching you interact with his favorites then you want to make sure that you are treating that person better than you've ever treated anyone else because they are GOD's favorite and that's a pretty big deal. 

Now let's think about some things for a second:

1. God created the whole world, he loves us all. Doesn't that make all of us his favorite? 
2. It's a pretty well known fact that God's omnipresent, so even when we don't think he's watching he really is.

Keeping those things in mind examine the way you treat people on a daily basis. What lens do you use to view the people you interact with on a daily basis? Do you let the societal norms and standards influence how you look at someone and allow you to superficially judge them? Or are you looking at those around you through the eyes of God? Do you acknowledge and treat them like the favorite of God that they are?

The truth is as humans we down right suck at not judging people. I especially find it so easy to look at someone and just write them off and not want to have a conversation with them because their hair is unkept or their clothes aren't the hippest. We so quickly allow the world dictate how we treat and interact with other people, especially strangers, that we loose sight of how we ought to be conducting our selves toward others. 1 John 4:9-11 says "In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not the we loved God but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." Something that was brought up by Steve Gardner (the NC regional YL director) at Committee Leader Weekend when he talked about this subject was that ought can be translated to "owe it to." AKA we OWE it to God to view every person we meet as someone whom Christ died for and love them accordingly, as God would love them.

Let that be our challenge this week: to not forget that Christ died for EVERYONE'S sins and just those who have accepted him. Not forget that every single person is a favorite of God, immensely loved by our Heavenly Father and we owe it to God to treat them like he is behind them pointing and screaming "THEY'RE MY FAVORITE!"