“The story is told about a poor woman who lived across the tracks and wanted to join a very fashionable church. She talked to the pastor about it, but he sought to discourage her. He suggested she go home and think about it carefully for a week.
“At the end of the week she came back. He said, “Go home and read your Bible for an hour every day this week. Then come back and tell me if you still feel you should join.” Although she wasn’t happy about this, she agreed to do it. The next week she was back, assuring the pastor she wanted to become a member of the church. In exasperation he said, “I have one more requirement. You pray every day this week and ask the Lord if he wants you to come into our fellowship.”
“Unfortunately, the pastor did not see the woman for six months. He met her on the street one day and asked her what she had decided. She said, “Yeah, I did what you asked me to do. I went home and prayed. One day while I was praying, the Lord said to me, ‘Don’t worry about not getting into that church. I’ve been trying to get into it myself for the last twenty years!” (borrowed).
Class distinctions have no place in the church of the Lord. James wrote: “My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. For if a man comes into your assembly with a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and there also comes in a poor man in dirty clothes, and you pay special attention to the one who is wearing the fine clothes, and say, “You sit here in a good place,” and you say to the poor man, “You stand over there, or sit down by my footstool,” have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil motives?”
Rich or poor, we are all welcome in His church. It is Christ’s church, not ours.
God loves you!
Mike
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