No Regard For Others

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September 4
I should have been out the door to the grocery store, but inside I was flat on the floor before God.  (The positioning didn't begin out of reverence, but because I'd been cleaning spiders out from under a book case and was plumb tuckered out from my morning of chores and stretching my sore back.) Anyway, God had my attention.

I told the Lord, I knew I had some heart issues and asked him to reveal the source.  He said, "You're ticked by people who have no regard for others."

Hmm..like the treatment of the Jews? The Japanese/Americans in the novel Hotel at the Corner of Bitter and Sweet? Our country's involvement in slavery?  The unborn? Nuts like me with a crazy Christian faith?  Where was this going?  The bigger question (my sin issues) and supposed purpose of this quiet time would be...Who it is I have no regard for?

Turning to Biblegateway I found Paul standing on a platform. He is sounding off to us from the grave on how to make the best of any situation.  "Go ahead, lock me up, mistreat me, God will use it for good!."

"So how am I to respond? I’ve decided that I really don’t care about their motives, whether mixed, bad, or indifferent. Every time one of them opens his mouth, Christ is proclaimed, so I just cheer them on! And I’m going to keep that celebration going because I know how it’s going to turn out. Through your faithful prayers and the generous response of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, everything he wants to do in and through me will be done. I can hardly wait to continue on my course. I don’t expect to be embarrassed in the least. On the contrary, everything happening to me in this jail only serves to make Christ more accurately known, regardless of whether I live or die. They didn’t shut me up; they gave me a pulpit! Alive, I’m Christ’s messenger; dead, I’m his bounty. Life versus even more life! I can’t lose."       Philippians 1:21 MSG

Paul was truly a life transformed.  He teaches us whom we are to no longer regard once we come to Christ.

And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died
for them and was raised again.

 So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.  Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!  2 Corinthians 5:15-17

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