Devotionals

As a Crosstalk Resident for Cypress Creek Church, I get to spend lots of time at Texas State University in San Marcos, inviting college students to know Jesus. Each week, we spend time in the middle of campus handing out Crosstalk cards and initiating conversations with students. Being on the Texas State campus each week has been an incredible experience; I have witnessed the most beautiful encounters and watched Jesus move in more ways than I could count. However, in full transparency, the Lord has revealed more bias and pre-judgments in my heart through these experiences than I ever realized that I had.

I began to realize how much, as humans, we tend to gravitate towards people who look, talk, and act like us. In our modern day, just like the stories we see in Acts, our hearts are no better than the assembly that wanted to impose expectations upon the Gentiles. We can impose our own preconceived notions and expectations on people… something Jesus never instructs us to do. In fact, the love of Jesus demonstrates that we ought to do the opposite.

If we can be honest with ourselves and with God for a moment, each of us has our own assumptions about who we think will say “yes” to the call of Jesus. Even among fellow believers, we can put expectations on our brothers and sisters about various things they ought to drop or adopt. Scripture makes it clear that walking with a community that will keep us accountable to the call of Jesus is needed, beautiful, and life-giving… but we must be diligent to guard our hearts against judgments that Jesus never asks us to put on people. As instructed in verse 19, I pray that I do not make it difficult for those who are turning to God.

There is an older song called Jesus, Friend of Sinners that I feel can sum this up perfectly. May this be our prayer today.