The special label

Have you ever found a jar of unlabeled food in your pantry? The only way to find out what's inside is to open the jar. After opening the unlabeled mason jar, what is the probability that the reality actually matches your expectations? Probably pretty low. This is why grocery store labels are so important. They can give us an idea of ​​what to expect inside the package. Often there is even a picture of the product on the label so you can be sure you are getting what you want to buy.

Labels are essential to the business of a grocery store, but when we meet people in everyday life, we put them in a neatly labeled drawer with heaps of prepackaged opinions lying around. Labels and labels with assumptions such as "arrogant" or "dangerous" are stuck to these drawers of our imaginary chests of drawers. We put people and situations into these drawers that seem to fit in our opinion. Of course, we cannot really know in advance whether a person is arrogant or a situation is dangerous. Sometimes we're quick to label someone without knowing exactly who they really are. Maybe we just saw the color of their skin, their position at work and in life, or their political sticker, or something else that elicited a judgmental reaction.

A few years ago I read in a magazine that our brains are wired to make these kinds of hasty judgments as a means of self-protection and decision-making. It may be true, but I know that such hasty judgments pose a great danger to human relationships, especially if we don't examine our prejudices.

The church in Corinth may have been a diverse congregation, but it lacked mutual acceptance and acceptance. They still held a secular view, giving each other discriminatory labels. Therefore, there were people who divided themselves into their own groups according to their prejudices, be it race, wealth, status or culture. Her judgmental thinking not only disrupted her community, but was a bad testimony to those outside the community.

Paul gives us a different perspective in Corinthians: «Therefore henceforth we know no one after the flesh; and though we knew Christ according to the flesh, yet we know him no longer so. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come" (2. Corinthians 5,16-17).

What the Corinthian church failed to realize was that it is through Christ that we receive our true identity and that all other designations, whether gender, race, social status, or political ideology, pale in comparison. Our true identity, in Christ, brings us into wholeness and is the fullness of who we are. She is not just an image, but the substance of who we are. We are the blessed, free and praised children of God. Which label would you like to wear? Will you surrender to what the world has to say about you, or will you agree with the only assessment that God the Father reveals about you? Are you labeled as a new creation in Christ Jesus, knowing that you are accepted and loved by the Father? This label cannot fall off and marks you for who you really are!

by Jeff Broadnax