“Is that?”

²Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in. ³If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, "Here's a good seat for you," but say to the poor man, "You stand there" or "Sit on the floor by my feet," ⁴have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? James 2:2-3

As I was reading this I thought, "I did that!"

Over Thanksgiving weekend there was a National 12 year old Boys/Girls Tennis Open here @ FSU that my wife helped run and my youngest son Drew played in. Some of the best 12 year olds in the country and overseas came to Tallahassee to play in it.

Here's where this verse hits home. One of the boy's fathers was a nationally known TV celebrity. He was an incredibly humble, gracious man who was just there to be "dad" and watch his son play. Since my wife was running the "tennis desk" we knew he would be there, but no one else did. You would see people taking second looks and then respond to each other "is that?"

Because of who he was, I found my self wanting to get to know him and did. Drew and his son became double's partners, so over the next 4 days we spent quite a bit of time talking and hanging out. He and his family were so incredibly normal, down to earth, humble people, who we enjoyed establishing a relationship with.

But, even during that time God kept putting that thought in the back of my head "would
you be giving the same attention to homeless guy across the street?"

Truth is most days I do try to stop and talk to the homeless guys, but I definitely showed "special attention" to the celebrity, even bragged about hanging out with him. "Ah, the pride of life thing!"

I am so thankful that as Romans 2:11 says "God doesn't show favoritism" and that He is at work in me because I definitely need it!

Take sometime and read or reread the previous day's post and change the way you see people.