Children of God

I was at an immigration reform meeting yesterday (Oct 9,2010), and there was a short service before the speeches. We had the back and forth readings of the leader and the congregation, and the gist of the readings were that people should be treated with dignity even in foreign lands. The immigration situation is a mess, and I have sympathy on both sides of the issue. I think that the claims of immigrants that the jobs they take are not wanted by anyone else must be a bit of an exaggeration. Since I've been looking for work, I know how bad it is out there to find a job.

Yet, the people of Latin America have extremely little, and they become desperate enough to try anything for survival for themselves and their families. I've seen their living situations, so I know that end of it. In a perfect world we would all try to share fairly, but the unfortunate thing is that this is not a perfect world. There is crime in places where there could otherwise be people living peacefully. There are too many resources used by a small number of people. We are all familiar with the problems.

The point I want to make, though, is that in that small service we had, the last line was about all of us being Children of God. It was the kind of thing that you read because you are just reading along and haven't read through the thing before to see if you agree with everything that it says. But it bothers me afterward, because I didn't agree.

I have heard that expression used many times, but I don't know of anyplace it occurs in the Bible. I'm not a Bible expert, so maybe someone could point it out. But I do know where it says that is not true. Read the first Chapter of John. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. Further down, you will see that the world was made through this Word. Then further still, the Word came to the world, but the world did not recognize Him. Though the world was made through Him, it did not receive Him. But to those who did receive Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to be called children of God.

This is what I believe. The other religions have creeds that are different than Christians. They do not accept Christ as Lord. This is not something we can ignore and make all things inclusive. This is something we each need to think out for ourselves and remember that much as we'd like other things like immigration reform, first things need to be first.

And next time, I'm going to be a lot more careful what I read out loud in any service.