GRACE OR PREJUDICE: Make Your Choice Now!
GRACE OR PREJUDICE: Make your choice now!
Prejudice is the blindness of the soul, a blindfold on your understanding, blinkers on your perception and a thick veil against the light. It is a burka on the spirit, the gravedigger of the truth, the hangman of goodness and the devil in the eye. It is the Satan of the feelings, the burial of the reconciliation possibilities and the human sulfur that produces statues like Lot’s wife.
Prejudice is the blindness of the soul, a blindfold on your understanding, blinkers on your perception and a thick veil against the light. It is a burka on the spirit, the gravedigger of the truth, the hangman of goodness and the devil in the eye. It is the Satan of the feelings, the burial of the reconciliation possibilities and the human sulfur that produces statues like Lot’s wife.
In Christ there is neither male nor female, slave nor free, Jew nor Greek, barbarian nor Celtic, nor whatever may mean that anybody is alien to their neighbor.
However, this notion of Christ is for the one who is in Christ, and it is only for whom being in Christ is a fact in life. Only in this way the truth of being in Christ becomes a fact beyond the text that proposes it, being embodied by the person who claims to believe.
Therefore, in order that this being in Christ is true, there cannot be prejudice.
If there is prejudice, there is no understanding of God’s grace!
How come you profess that by your own efforts you are lost, and that God gave you forgiveness for free (through Christ), and, despite this confession, you are still prejudiced?
Don’t be mistaken:
All prejudice, no grace; some prejudice, some Grace, little prejudice, much grace; no prejudice, all grace.
Would grace be, then, a bargain with our relational virtues?
Well, of course not! However, if grace is the sap, the fruit must be love, and there is no fear in love. Every prejudice is fear in the form of hostility or indifference. So, where there is grace there cannot be prejudice, just like where light is, darkness cannot be.
If I say that despite my numerous sorts of prejudice grace is poured out into me, I am lying against the Truth: The Grace of God is poured out into me in order to break me concerning my judgment and prejudice. But if I insist on keeping them, grace gets out of me and lets me live my life of anti-grace toward my neighbor.
Judging consists of living on your own, without grace.
Saying, “Father, show no favoritism toward me, as I have also shown no favoritism toward others” is the same as praying, “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.”
Grace and prejudice are as antithetical as love and hatred!
So, stop defending your prejudice and hostility and, in earnest, understand this: If you do not convert your mind from the state of prejudice to the spirit of grace, neither will your heavenly Father treat you with no favoritism. For He who tells us to forgive so that we keep faithful to the spirit of forgiveness God gave us, implicitly teaches us that, likewise, those who are given grace can no longer dislike and be prejudiced toward anyone.
So, make up your mind: Grace or prejudice? Both will only walk hand in hand when the devil converts.
Think about it.
Caio
AUG/20/07
Manaus, Amazonas
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Translation: F. R. Castelo Branco | October 2007
From the original “GRAÇA OU PRECONCEITO – Escolha logo!”
