I have seen so many people laughing and gawking at the pictures surrounding this headline.  It isn’t funny and I call my brothers and sisters in Jesus to look at them a different way.

What do we see when we look at those pages?  Obesity, strange dress, things that disgust and appall us.  Do we question their sanity, their understanding of what they look like?  Do we call them names and look at ourselves with gratitude that we aren’t as screwed up as they are?

How does Jesus view them?  Does He see past their exterior to the pain underneath?  Does He see their cry for help, their shouts to be noticed, to matter?  I think He does.  In the eyes of a Holy, Flawless, Amazing God, aren’t the efforts of a worship leader on Sunday relatively on a par with the craziness and eccentricites we see posted?

Paul said that his “righteousness was as filthy rags” and yet we see ourselves as better somehow.  Maybe in the eyes of society we are but as we stand before God, hardly.

I don’t mean this to condemn.  I mean this to shake us from our self-reverence and turn us to the heart of our Savior.  We worship Him not because we are worthy to worship, that we are justified in any way apart from the shed blood of Jesus.  We should love all people because He first loved us. 

We should stop laughing and let them know they matter so much that He died for them.

Related articles

• Invisible – Rachel (valleyworship.org)