APP: Being prejudiced means you have locked into a belief, opinion, or judgment without getting all the facts about a person or situation. It can be because of race, gender, social class, age, ethnicity, or a disability. These unreasonable and uniformed attitudes can motivate you to act in certain ways that could even result in violence. Why should people be treated unequally just because they happen to belong to a certain people group? You can see tensions of prejudice and its effects revealed in many different forms nationally and internationally—from gang turf wars on the streets of Los Angeles to fighting in the Middle East. If only we could all have the eyes of a child. Children don’t see the color of someone’s skin or their social class. More importantly, we need to see people as God sees them. God loves every person the same. There’s no one who is loved less or loved more because of skin color, age, or social class. God treats us all the same because we are all equal in Him. We can prevent prejudice one person at a time. It starts by simply being kind to one another.
Then Peter began to speak: “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right.”
ACTS 10:34–35 NIV
My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism.
JAMES 2:1 NIV
For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
GALATIANS 3:26–29 NKJV
In this new life, it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized, slave, or free. Christ is all that matters, and he lives in all of us.
COLOSSIANS 3:11 NLT
“When a foreigner lives with you in your land, don’t take advantage of him. Treat the foreigner the same as a native. Love him like one of your own. Remember that you were once foreigners in Egypt. I am God, your God.”
LEVITICUS 19:33–34 MSG