Romans 9:25-26

Purple Porterweed, Parsonage Butterfly Garden, Florida, July 2013

Those who were not my people I will call 'my people,'
and her who was not beloved I will call 'beloved.'"
"And in the very place where it was said to them, 'You are not my people,' there they shall be called children of the living God.
Romans 9:25-26

Jesus spent his entire ministry living out God's plan to draw all people unto God, to erase boundaries and borders that separate us into insiders and outsiders, the welcomed and unwelcomed. Jesus spent his entire ministry living out God's plan to incorporate the high and the lowly, the powerful and the poor, the popular and the lonely, the broken and the lost. Every time we label, mock, and hate others and use religion to divide rather than advance this ultimate plan of God, we expose one of the fundamental human sins within our own hearts.