Devotionals

God moved toward you when you were an outsider. God welcomed you when you were unclean. God reconciled you when you were separated from him. And now God is calling you to do the same for others.

Jesus was willing to pay the price of moving toward people. He was willing to be criticized by religious leaders. He was willing to be misunderstood by the crowds. He was willing to risk his reputation for the sake of welcoming outsiders. And he calls us to do the same.

We're afraid that if we get too close to people whose lives are messy, we'll be contaminated. We're afraid that if we engage with people who are struggling, their problems will become our problems. We're afraid that if we associate with people others consider outsiders, we'll become outsiders too. So we keep our distance.

This was revolutionary. For Peter's entire life, he'd been taught that there were clean people and unclean people. There were insiders and outsiders. There were people you could associate with and people you couldn't. These categories weren't just social conventions. They were religious requirements. But God was telling Peter that those categories were wrong.

Jesus didn't get baptized because he needed to be purified. Jesus got baptized because he chose to identify with sinners. He chose to stand with people that everyone else said were unclean. He chose to move toward people instead of avoiding them. This is who God is. While we try to avoid what's unclean, God moves toward it.