September 13, Breaking Down Barriers

Today’s reading: Psalms 61-65

“Surely the lowborn are but a breath, the highborn are but a lie. If weighed on a balance, they are nothing; together they are only a breath” - Psalm 62:9.

Almost all cultures tend to place those who have much above those who have not. The rich receive privileges, special laws and honor, while the poor receive whatever benefits their governments decide to give them. Yet wealth is a meaningless differentiation among human beings, for the wealth seems to be distributed not according to the value of someone’s work or humanity, but is based on arbitrary decisions of what cultures deem important and unimportant. If you do a search in Proverbs of the words rich and poor, eleven verses will come up, one of which is “Rich and poor have this in common: The Lord is the Maker of them all” (Proverbs 22:2). Have you created artificial boundaries between yourself and those on the opposite end of your economic spectrum? Do you idolize the rich or despise the poor? If poor, do you have any rich friends? If rich, do you fellowship and have relationships with the poor? Paul wrote that “there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). The gospel came not just to break down racial, gender, and national barriers, it also came to demolish class and economic barriers, so get busy crossing from where you are to minister to those who are not like you, regardless of whether live in a mansion or a shack.