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We should be ashamed at the news in the last week. Indian students are being targeted here in Australia. Petrol bombs and screwdriver attacks are not how we should be treating visitors to our shores. This is racist intolerance.

As Christians we can and should be so different to our society. Our Lord Jesus is intolerant towards treating people differently based on their birth, ethnicity, wealth or status. His death of love destroyed the divisions between Jew and Gentile. His work of judgment will unite people of every tongue and race under his Lordship. He commands us to love one another, as he loves us.

Church should be a place where people are embraced as God’s creatures, where Christians are loved as brothers and sisters in Christ, regardless of ethnicity or background. And this has been my experience as a Christian. But we can always love more like Jesus.

Can you see how we might ignore or shun people because they aren’t like me? exclude them from conversations because they are older than me, or are a student, or come from overseas or have a different sort of job or are unemployed or? Sometimes we might justify this because we are not sure what to talk about. How we could better love each other?

Why don’t you let us know your thoughts. And I’ll share some ideas. But this week lets make sure we pray for our overseas students in particular.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 19th, 2009 at 1:59 pm and is filed under Membership, Pastors thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.