Sometimes people don’t make it easy to accept them. They can be bad tempered, selfish, critical, irritating, dismissive, aggressive and pompous. Sometimes we want to angrily tell them what we think of them; to give them what they deserve – anything but acceptance. Which makes Paul’s instruction to ‘accept one another’ inconvenient. If Paul had stopped there, we might try dodging the instruction by saying he obviously meant good, reasonable, acceptable people. But he goes on, ‘just as Christ accepted you’. Were you always good, reasonable and acceptable? No, none of us is. But He still accepted us – flaws and all – and He still does! We might want people to see the error of their ways, make changes for the better, and become easier to deal with before we accept them. But think about how Jesus accepted us – He didn’t wait for us to improve ourselves before opening His arms to us. Roman Christians had difficulty accepting their less experienced brothers and sisters in Christ, and Paul corrected them: ‘Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling…for God has accepted them’ (Romans 14:1-3 NIV). Straightening people out isn’t our department; accepting them is. God calls us to accept messed-up, unspiritual, irritating, obnoxious, and theologically misled people. We don’t have to approve of, like, or agree with them, but accepting them isn’t optional. There’s no elite, privileged, insider class. We ‘re all on level ground because of two realities: our sin and the cross! Jews and Gentiles despised each other, even after salvation. Each wanted the other to change and become like them. But Paul smashed down their arguments: ‘For Christ himself…reconciled both groups to God by means of His death on the cross, and our hostility toward each other was put to death’ (Ephesians 2:14-16 NLT). Our job is to accept people – and let God adjust them.
